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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE INITIATIVE AND 

REFERENDUM 



BY 

HERMANN LIEB 

Author of ^^ Abuses of Protective Tariff^'''* *^ Life of 

Emperor William,'^ '^ Foes of the French 

Revolution of i;^8py^^ Etc, 





CHICAGO: 


H. 


IvIEB, JR. & CO. 




1902 



THf t'6ff'*\^ OF 

CONORFSS, 
One Co^ ^FOtivti 

i'EP. S 1902 

Cn»»VftlOHT ENTRV 

CLASi Q, XXo. No. 
COPY§. 






COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 

HERMANN IvIJ^B. 



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BEGAN PRINTING HOUSE. CHICAGO 



oO 

I 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction 9 

Chap T er I— Origin of Initiative and Referendum 13 

Chapter II— Referendum at Plymouth Rock 22 

Chapter III— Might vs. Right 28 

Chapter IV — Political Degeneration 34 

Chapter V— Representative System 41 

Chapter VI — Machine Rule 45 

Chapter VII— Representative and Corporate Tur- 
pitude 56 

Chapter VIII — Government of Cities 65 

Chapter IX — Proposed Remedies. The Primary 

System 82 

Chapter X — Other Proposed Remedies 91 

Chapter XI — Reasoning from False Premises 96 

Chapter XII— Forward Steps 102 

Chapter XIII — Evidences of the Civic Maturity of 

the People of Cities 122 

Chapter XIV — Historic Sketch of the Initiative and 

Referendum in Switzerland 129 

Chapter XV — Referendum in the Cantons , 137 

Chapter XVI — The Initiative and Referendum in 

the Confederation 149 

Chapter XVII— The Only Remedy 158 

Chapter XVIII — Partisanship and Partisan I^egisla- 

tion Lessened by the Referendum. 163 

Chapter XIX — The Referendum as an Educa- 
tional Agency 167 

Chapter XX— The Referendum an Obstacle to Over- 
Legislature 170 

Chapter XXI— A Tragic Object Lesson 172 

Chapter XXII— Conclusion 176 



Preface 

What shall we do to save our large cities 
from perdition? is the cry of superficial re- 
formers. 

It is plain that there is but one answer to the 
query : ''Let them alone !'' 

In order to demonstrate the propriety and 
practicability of this course, the following pages 
have been written. It has been my earnest 
endeavor to show that all the people must be 
given the opportunity to do what a few have 
tried in vain to do — namely, to solve the "Prob- 
lem of Government of Cities," which has baf- 
fled the efforts and taxed the ingenuity of po- 
litical and social reformers ever since the mon- 
archical system of City Charters was grafted 
upon the free institutions of the country. 

I have further tried to show that the ruin- 
ous spirit of political partisanship in purely lo- 
cal affairs has produced the monstrosity known 

6 



6 Preface 

as the "Boss;" that the unbridled license with 
which the representative bodies of many of 
our states and municipalities have prostituted 
their power to legislate is but the legitimate 
outcome of these political abnormities. Be- 
lieving with Thomas Jefferson that "the people 
are capable of self-government; that the peo- 
ple voice an unselfish sentiment to law-making 
when the laws are submitted to them for sanc- 
tion, I have been impelled, as a lover of my 
adopted country, to use whatever ability I pos- 
sess in furtherance of the system of self-gov- 
ernment which Motley says is "the life blood 
of liberty." 

To attract the attention of the student, with 
the hope of instructing him in the origin and 
historical development of the institution known 
as the Initiative and Referendum, I Tiave de- 
voted two chapters, exclusively, to this subject, 
as well as one upon its practical exercise in 
Switzerland. When the fact is considered that, 
according to the last census, more than one- 
quarter of the people of the United States live 
in 159 cities; that these cities are the centers of 
political activity, wielding commanding influ- 
ence, apart from their local affairs, over state 



Preface 7 

and national politics, the question of their prop- 
er government should be of absorbing interest 
to all the people of the country. 

Hermann Lieb. 



The Initiative and Referendum. 

INTRODUCTION. 

These terms having been borrowed from 
Switzerland, their import seems not to be thor- 
oughly understood by the American people, 
although, under various designations, the po- 
litical principle has been in practical operation 
in this country since 1620. Therefore, a plain 
definition at the beginning of this volume ap- 
pears necessary in order to allay the apprehen- 
sion that the principle represented by them 
is of foreign importation. They are of 
Latin origin, Initium — ^to introduce by first 
act, and Referre — to carry or send back, and 
were adopted by several Swiss cantons to des- 
ignate the duties of the delegates to the Tag- 
satzung, or Federal Diet. As above stated, 
loth the Initiative and Referendum — in their 
ethical sense — were introduced into this coun- 
try long before in use in their present form by 
the Swiss Confederacy. 

The New England Town-Meeting corre- 
isponds almost exactly to the ancient Swiss 
Landsgemeinde, the difference being princi- 
pally in territorial extent. In the latter in- 
stance, all citizens of their cantons attended 



lo Introduction 

these popular assemblies while in the former 
only the people of a town took part, for the sim- 
ple reason that, in those early days the town 
was the only organized body for the transac- 
tion of public business. The Town-Meetings 
of the Colonies, however, were more demo- 
cratic than the Swiss Landsgemeinde, inas- 
much as the former elected their moderator 
from among their midst, while the Landam- 
mann, or chief magistrate of the canton, pre- 
sided at their gatherings. In the town-meet- 
ing the motions were made^ that is, initiated, 
by some townsman present, while the measure 
to be voted upon at the Landsgemeinde, was 
generally prepared by a small number of citi- 
zens, and thereupon submitted to a vote of the 
gathering for their action. 

To illustrate the operation of the Referen- 
dum is but to describe the proceedings of a 
town-meeting, called by a certain number of 
citizens, or by its constituted authorities, a 
majority of the voters of the town being pres- 
ent. 

The meeting is called to order and a mod- 
erator elected. 

"What is the pleasure of the meeting?" asks 
the moderator. 

Some citizen rises and addressing the chair^ 
says : 'There is, in my opinion, a general de- 
mand in our town for a new school house;'* 



Introduction ii 

thereupon he makes the motion to erect one, at 
a cost not to exceed $5,000. 

This motion constitutes the Initiative, since 
the measure for the erection of the structure 
was introduced or initiated by some member 
of the assembled citizens. 

The motion now in the hands of the modera- 
tor is submitted, or referred by him to the 
townsmen present for discussion, adoption or 
rejection; a majority vote decides its fate. 

This reference, of the question by the pre- 
siding officer to the whole meeting, constitutes 
the Referendum. 

This simple proceeding fully exemplifies the 
principle of self-government, of which the In- 
itiative and Referendum are the embodiment. 



Chapter I. 

HISTORICAL SKETCH ORIGIN OF THE REFER- 
ENDUM. 

It is a significant fact that Americans who 
can trace their ancestry to England refer with 
a feehng of pride to their Anglo-Saxon origin. 
It can not be a sentiment of blood relationship 
with this ancient race, for this has been un- 
recognizably intermixed and diluted with the 
blood of other races; it must, therefore, be on 
account of some conspicuous characteristic, for 
which these people are known in history to 
excel, that the Anglo-American prides himself 
to be a descendant. The Anglo-Saxons were 
a brave and warlike people, but so were the 
Irish, the Scots, the Picts and the ancient 
Britons. The quality, however, in which they 
most peculiarly excelled, was their unquench- 
able love of liberty and their unyielding at- 
tachment to the free institutions of self-gov- 
ernment, which their ancestors had brought 
over from Germany. It is this virtue that 
renders their memory dear to the heart of a 
genuinely patriotic American, and he may well 
feel proud of his inheritance; it is the most 

13 



14 The Referendum 

ancient, best preserved and most unique, we 
may say, among the peoples of the civilized 
world. Ancient Greece had her period of 
republican liberty ; so had Rome, but in neither 
republics was the principle of freedom so 
deeply rooted in the hearts of men as in an- 
cient Germany, and while almost the remem- 
brance of Greek and Roman liberty has faded 
away, Teutonic liberty has withstood the re- 
vulsions of time and survives to this day. 
This peculiar virility of Teutonic freedom is 
not to be attributed to its spirit alone, but to 
the rational common sense methods of its ex- 
ercise. In the mind of the ancient Teuton, 
all men were created equal; hence no one was 
born to command; no one to enjoy rights 
not enjoyed by all, and it was in this sense 
that their popular assemblies were conducted, 
and upon this conception of human society 
they reared their political structure. "They 
lived free among freemen,'' says the Roman 
historian Tacitus. "Acknowledged no supe- 
rior but the chief of their own choice; recog- 
nized no master but the laws of their own 
making; administered justice at their public 
gatherings themselves, minor matters only be- 
ing passed upon by the chiefs ; but all matters 
of importance were referred to the whole peo- 
ple for settlement.'' These free institutions 
were identical all over ancient Germany; from 



The Referendum 15 

the foot of the Alps, where the warlike tribe 
of the Allemani — the most determined foe 
of the Romans — occupied the territory now in- 
cluded in the German part of Switzerland, all 
of the southern part of modern Germany, and 
north to the shores of the Baltic, inhabited 
by the brave and adventurous Saxons, Jutes 
and Angles. During the year 490 A. D. the 
southern part of Germany was overrun by the 
western Franks, under the conquering Clovis, 
who incorporated the major part of it with his 
kingdom, forming of the rest the Dukedom of 
Allemani. A large number of the inhabitants, 
unwilling to surrender their liberties to a for- 
eign ruler, fled into the mountain recesses of 
the Swiss Alps, where they found security 
from royal rapacity and predatory incursions, 
owing to the scarcity of tillable land. There, 
vestal-like, they kept watch over the fires of 
liberty for more than eight hundred years. 
In the latter part of the Thirteenth Century, 
however, the Dukes of Austria raised the 
claim of suzerainty over their country and as- 
sumed the right to appoint governors over 
them. Rising in patriotic fervor against this 
proposed suppression of their ancient liberties, 
a struggle of nearly two hundred years fol- 
lowed, ending in a most glorious victory for 
justice and right, forming one of the brightest 
pages of Swiss history. 



i6 The Referendum 

While some of the Southern AUemani had 
thus migrated into the valleys of Switzerland^ 
the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, unconsciously^ 
were preparing to lay the foundations of 
mighty nations to the west of them. Long 
before the Roman invasion of Britain these 
northern tribes of Germany enjoyed com- 
mercial relations with the Britons, thereby 
gaining important and useful informa- 
tion concerning their country. After the 
departure of the Romans they frequently as- 
sisted their neighbors in their border wars 
with the Picts and Scots, and so valiantly did 
they bear themselves that they were invited 
by the Britons to come over and settle among 
them under promise of rich lands. Enervated 
through the military rule of the Romans, last- 
ing nearly four centuries, the Britons were no 
match for the energetic and pushing new-com- 
ers; quarrels were frequent, ending in bitter 
feuds, and true to the maxim of the survival 
of the fittest, the Saxons gained the upper 
hand, gradually obtaining authority, which 
culminated in the Seventh Century in the ab- 
solute mastery of the country. The introduc- 
tion of the language, laws — in moder parlance 
termed common law — and customs of the 
fatherland naturally followed. With the ex- 
ception of occasional interruptions from the 
Danes, the Saxons retained supremacy until 
the Norman conquest. 



The Referendum 17 

The Normans brought with them the feudal 
system then in force in France; the lands were 
parceled out among the conquerors' followers, 
the Saxon freeholds changed to feudal ten- 
ures and the freeman, who heretofore had ac- 
knowledged no superior save his self-chosen 
chief, was gradually reduced to the debased 
and despised condition of villain — a French 
term signifying all that is low and servile — 
so that by the middle of the Thirteenth Cen- 
tury England's peasantry was but a step re- 
moved from slavery. On the other hand, the 
ruling classes, which for accuracy's sake, shall 
hereafter be designated as the official English- 
men, who boast today of being the original 
descendants of the Anglo-Saxons and the pa- 
triotic transmitters of Teutonic institutions 
have adhered to the record of the Norman 
tribes — known in ancient history as the "Pi- 
rates of the North" — through the last six hun- 
dred years with remarkable consistency. Cen- 
turies before their conquest of England the 
Normans ravaged the Atlantic and Mediter- 
ranean coasts from the mouth of the Rhine to 
the walls of Constantinople, entering their 
rivers, sacking and burning the cities along 
their banks. Such places as Cologne and Manz 
and other large cities of interior Germany, ex- 
posed to their nautical incursions, were made 
the victims of these maritime Huns. Finally 



i8 The Referendum. 

they invaded Northwestern France in com- 
bined and overwhelming force, securing from 
the French King the finest portion of his ter- 
ritory, the only condition exacted that they 
accept Christianity — a bargain readily con- 
cluded. This trading in heavenly futures for 
earthly possessions has been ever since the 
favorite method employed by official England 
for acquiring the Real Estate of other peoples. 

Under the pretext of Christianizing, civiliz- 
ing and assimilating the untutored savage, they 
have seized the countries of the weak, until 
England has come into possession of nearly 
one-quarter of the inhabitable globe. While 
official England thus continued to play the 
role performed by their predatory ancestry, 
for the sole and exclusive benefit of their own 
class, the mass of real Englishmen, the people 
with gainful pursuits, in the counting room, 
workshop, study and on the farm, not only 
were compelled to come up for the expenses of 
these Christianizing ventures, but in the mean- 
time were robbed of their own liberties. Never- 
theless, during all this period of might over 
right the flame of Teutonic liberty was kept 
burning in the towns and cities of England. 

"In the silent growth and elevation of the 
English people,'' says the historian Green, "the 
boroughs led the way. Despoiled and despised 
by nobles and prelates, they alone had pre- 



The Referendum 19 

served, or won back again the full tradition 
of Teutonic liberty. The right of self-govern- 
ment, of free speech, in free meeting, of equal 
justice by one's equals, was brought safely 
across the ages of tyranny by the burghers and 
shop-keepers of the towns. In the quiet, 
quaint-named streets, in the Lord's mill, be- 
side the stream, in mead and market-place, in 
the bell that swung out its summons to the 
crowded borough-mote, in merchants' guild, 
church guild and craft guild, lay the life of 
Englishmen, who were doing more than 
Knight and Baron to make England what she 
is in the life of their home and trade, their 
sturdy battle with oppression, their steady, 
ceaseless struggle for right and freedom." 

The official Englishman claims the credit 
of having exacted the Magna Charta from 
King John, and some unthinking people style 
them the "patriots of their time." But what 
are the stubborn facts in the case? The Nor- 
mans claimed and exercised almost despotic 
authority over the old nobility of the rural dis- 
tricts, resulting in incessant struggles, which 
conflicts culminated in the important conces- 
sion contained in the Magna Charta. These 
concessions, however, were but relinquish- 
ments of rights and privileges formerly enjoyed 
by the Anglo-Saxons. The nobles, in order 
to secure their own privileges, invited and ob- 



20 The Referendum 

tained the co-operation of a great part of the 
clergy, all of the cities and towns consequently 
found themselves in a position to throw such 
superiority of interests against the interests of 
the King that their demands were acquiesced 
in. The villains, at the time, probably formed 
a majority of the inhabitants of England. The 
word ^Villain," however, appears but once in 
the charter, and that was meant to include only 
the villains in the immediate service of the 
nobles; this mention was subsequently con- 
strued to embrace the villains as a class. To^ 
this fortunate construction the gradual emanci- 
pation of villainage was due. A constantly in- 
creasing class began to understand the protec- 
tion the great Bill of Rights threw around 
them and to defend its measures. Thus was 
regained through an apparently insignificant 
circumstance, after centuries of conflict, many 
of the primitive rights enjoyed by their Teu- 
tonic ancestors. Again, during the middle of 
the Seventeenth Century, there was a sudden 
tide in England's sturdy population. It was a 
religio-political uprising against official perse- 
cution and kingly tyranny. Broadly reviewed, 
the decapitation of Charles I. was but the dra- 
matic denouement of the struggles between 
the liberty-loving people of England and Eng- 
lish officialism during the preceding century. 
The lessons administered to kingly and official 



The Referendum 21 

arrogance by the plain people in the rural dis- 
tricts through their sturdy Cromwellian repre- 
sentatives proved as wholesome as they were 
drastic. 



Chapter IL 

THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM AT PLYM- 
OUTH ROCK. 

Almost a century before King Charles' ex- 
ecution the state religion of England had been 
changed from Catholic to Protestant, but this 
change was not fundamental enough to suit 
the religious views of a large number of the 
inferior clergy and their flocks. They main- 
tained that their religious convictions were 
matters strictly individual, with which the gov- 
ernment had no concern. This spirit of non- 
compliance was construed into rebellion against 
the state, punishable by banishment, imprison- 
ment or death. Many preferred voluntary 
exile and a small number drifted over to North 
America. 

In the early part of the Seventeenth Century 
an apparently insignificant event took place on 
that portion of the Atlantic coast, since known 
as New England, which appears to have fixed 
the destiny of the North American continent 
as the land forever to remain a secure asylum 
for the full and uninterrupted exercise of hu- 
man liberty. On the nth of November, 1620, 
a small craft, named the Mayflower, carrying 

22 



The Referendum 23 

one hundred passengers, women and children 
included, was anchored near Cape Cod. Forty- 
one of the males were assembled in the cabin 
putting the finishing touches to a governmental 
system which they proposed to inaugurate on 
reaching the shore. These men were of Eng- 
lish birth, but English officialism had driven 
them ten years before to take refuge in a for- 
eign land where liberty of conscience could be 
enjoyed. The ancient Teutonic liberties were 
still held in respect in Holland, and it was 
there, breathing the invigorating air of polit- 
ical and religious freedom, that the Anglo- 
Saxon traditions of liberty so consonant with 
their conception of the true Christian spirit 
and doctrine were rekindled. 

Unwilling to sacrifice their convictions in 
matters of religious forms — a condition prece- 
dent to a safe return to the land of their birth — 
their eyes were turned toward the New World, 
where a fair field for the establishment of a 
government in accord with their political and 
religious convictions invited them. These 
brave Englishmen came from a stock possessed 
of every qualification necessary for the foun- 
dation of a free commonwealth in the wilds 
of North America ; an inborn love of freedom ; 
an unbending will in the furtherance of a lofty 
purpose and an abiding trust in Divine Provi- 
dence. The sharp-edged religious methods and 



24 The Referendum 

the extreme austerity of their manner's have 
teen freely criticised. But who will say that 
these apparently illiberal traits of character 
may not have proven the essential attributes to 
their unparalleled success? It was this small 
band of liberty-loving burghers in the cabin 
of the Mayflower that drew up the first polit- 
ical document ever issued on the American 
Continent, for a government of, by and for 
themselves. The following is its verbatim 
text: 

''In the name of God, Amen. We, whose 
names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of 
our dread sovereign Lord, King James, hav- 
ing undertaken, for the glory of God, the ad- 
vancement of the Christian faith, and honor 
of our King and country, a voyage to plant 
the first Colony in the Northern part of Vir- 
ginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mu- 
tually, in the presence of God and of one 
another, covenant and combine ourselves to- 
gether, into a civil body politic, for our better 
ordering and preservation and furtherance of 
the ends aforesaid, and by virtue hereof do 
enact, constitute and frame, such just and equal 
laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, 
from tim.e to time, as shall be thought 
most meet and convenient for the good of the 
colony, unto which we promise all due submis- 
sion and obedience.'' 



The Referendum 25 

This most memorable event in the annals 
of American history took place during a period 
when the inhabitants of the Old World, with- 
out a notable exception, were yet suffering un- 
der the barbarous system of the middle ages, 
and when it is remembered that these Pilgrims, 
who formulated this first American Constitu- 
tion, were all of humble origin, not one ema- 
nating from England's privileged class, the 
performance challenges the admiration of the 
world. The seed of popular self-government 
sown by the Pilgrims took vigorous root in 
the virgin American soil. Thus, we perceive 
the system of home rule, which is called the 
Initiative and Referendum, is of native growth. 

It is true that this popular institution has 
l)een more fully developed in Switzerland, but 
the only thing we have borrowed from the Al- 
pine Republic is the name. This was used in 
that country in ancient times, when the can- 
tonal representatives to the Federal Diet were 
not permitted to finally determine important 
questions brought before that federal body, 
but were compelled to refer them back to their 
constituents for final adjudication; hence the 
term ''referendum.'' There is no doubt 
whatever that the introduction of that ancient 
system, if not in name, in form and spirit, is 
solely due to the pilgrim fathers of the May- 
flower. The methods adopted for the practical 



26 The Referendum 

exercise of the principles involved in their 

declarations have since been styled, the New 
England town - meeting. Thomas Jefferson, 
in speaking of this wise institution, said: "It 
has proven to be the wisest invention ever de- 
vised by the wit of man for the perfect exer-^ 
cise of self-government and its preservation. 
"^ * * Where every man is a sharer in 
the direction of his ward, and feels that he is 
a participator in the government of its affairs, 
not merely at an election, one day in the year, 
but every day. * * ^k When there 
shall not be a man in the state who will not 
be a member of some one of its councils, great 
or small, and who will let the heart be torn out 
of his body sooner than allow his powers to 
be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bona- 
parte." 

Though the modus operandi of carrying on a 
New England town-meeting is somewhat dif- 
ferent from that practiced by the ancient Teu- 
tons in their Folk-mote, or the ancient Swiss 
in their Landsgemeinde, or in modern Switz- 
erland under the terms, Initiative and Refer- 
endum, in spirit and purpose they are precisely 
the same. It is this institution that makes the 
often quoted phrase of a government of, by, 
and for the people an active, living truth. The 
Christian world calls the advent of the Pil- 
grims on the Western Continent providential. 



The Referendum 27 

The skeptic may call it natural evolution, the 
fact remains that, while the nations of the Old 
World had struggled for ages in the vain ef- 
fort to maintain or regain their God-given 
rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- 
piness, the northern half of the Western Hem- 
isphere apparently has been set apart, reserved 
as it were, by some protecting power for the 
free exercise of these rights. Who is the wise 
man able to calculate the consequences that 
might have resulted to America from the loss 
of the Mayflower with its little band bearing 
to the New World the old Teutonic liberties? 

Spain had already laid her iron hand upon 
what is now the best part of the United States ; 
the feudal system of land tenure had been in- 
troduced by France in the North. Before the 
landing of the Pilgrims, with the sole excep- 
tion of New Amsterdam, no rational and com- 
bined effort had been made looking toward 
the establishment of a free, self-governing 
commonwealth. Who will maintain but for 
this incident at Plymouth Rock the Declara- 
tion, which was but the amplification of the 
great principles there put in operation, would 
have been formulated, or the great Amer- 
ican Republic ever seen the light of day? 



Chapter III. 

MIGHT VS. RIGHT. 

The colonists were not permitted, however, 
thus indefinitely to enjoy the liberty of self- 
government. The views entertained by Brit- 
ish officialism concerning royal control over 
the colonies differed widely from those of the 
new settlers and for almost a hundred and fifty 
years the latter were the constant object of 
annoyance and persecution on the part of the 
British government. The latter claimed the 
right to alter or revoke their charters, which 
was denied by the colonists, who maintained 
they were compacts between themselves and 
the King; that the laws to which they were 
to conform were the great fundamental laws 
which secured to every British subject his 
birthright privileges as declared in the Mag- 
na Charta and Bill of Rights. The chief con- 
tention was that of taxation without represen- 
tation. English officialism maintained that 
Parliament had the power "to bind the colo- 
nies in all cases whatsoever." In the New 
England colonies it was generally maintained 
that the Colonial Assemblies possessed all the 
powers of legislation which had not been sur- 

28 



The Referendum 29 

rendered by compact; that the colonists, being 
British subjects, were not bound by laws to 
which their representatives had not assented, 
and the feeling of disgust and resentment rose 
from day to day. The vexatious and op- 
pressive measures dictated by the greed of 
English officialism to cripple the trade and the 
infant manufactures of the colonists are too 
widely known to necessitate repetition here. 
The spirit which animated this selfish and av- 
aricious policy was shamelessly proclaimed in 
the preamble of one of these acts in the follow- 
ing uncivil language: "The keeping of His 
Majesty's subjects in the plantations in a firmer 
dependence; the increase of English ship- 
ping, and the vent of English woolens and 
other manufactures and commodities." Duties 
were imposed upon sugars, tobacco, indigo, 
cotton, etc., transported from one colony to the 
other. But the general excitement rose to its 
height when it was rumored that the British 
government, which considered the charter ad- 
ministration of the colonists ''too liberal," con- 
templated "reforming the colonial govern- 
ment," and at the same time declared the in- 
tention of imposing stamp duties in the colo- 
nies. Intelligence of the passage of this act 
was received with indignation and alarm; 
meetings of the people were held; the whole 
country was in an uproar. The general sen- 



30 The Referendum 

timent on this entire question has thus been 
presented by John Adams: 

"The authority of ParUament was never 
generally acknowledged in America. More 
than a century since Massachusetts and Vir- 
ginia both protested against the Act of Navi- 
gation and refused obedience, for this very 
reason, because they were not represented in 
Parliament and were therefore not bound, and 
afterward confirmed it by their own provincial 
authority. And from that time to this the 
general sense of the colonies has been that 
the authority of Parliament was confined to 
the regulation of trade, and did not extend to 
taxation or internal legislation.'' 

All the indignities heaped upon the colo- 
nies were met with earnest but humble protests 
until goaded into open resistance by repeated 
acts of oppression. From the 5th of March, 
1770, when four citizens of Boston were killed 
by the English soldiers, the course of events 
rapidly shaped itself toward an open state of 
war between the colonies and British official- 
ism. The summary action of the Boston "Tea 
Party" in 1773, was followed by a war meas- 
ure from King George in 1774, by the battle 
of Lexington in 1775, and by the Declaration 
of Independence in 1776. 

This act was a new birth of Teutonic lib- 
erty, and the first open and bold vindication 



The Referendum 31 

by a people of the Christian doctrine of the 
brotherhood of men. It rekindled new hopes 
in the hearts of the oppressed in all parts of 
the civilized world, that after fifteen hundred 
years of oppression and servitude, Divine Prov- 
idence had interposed in order that "Govern- 
ment of, by and for the people should not per- 
ish from the earth/' It must be remembered, 
however, that not all of the colonists were free- 
dom-loving patriots of the Jefferson and 
Adams stamp. English toryism prevailed to 
an alarming extent. Whole regiments of 
these traitors were enlisted by the British gov- 
ernment to fight against their own American 
countrymen in their struggle for liberty and 
independence. 

On the other hand, the colonists were not 
without friends in the British Parliament, who 
perceived the justice of their cause and endeav- 
ored to stop further bloodshed. 

Moved by a generous impulse, the Marquis 
of Granby, in November, 1777, offered in the 
Parliament an amendment to the Crown ad- 
dress, to request his Majesty, *To adopt some 
measures for accommodating the differences 
with America, and recommending a cessation 
of all hostilities as necessary for the effectuat- 
ing of so desirable a purpose.'' But "official 
England" had a controlling influence in 
Parliament, and the sensible, as well as gen- 



32 The Referendum 

erous, proposition was rejected. It is highly^ 
significant that, the hypocritical tone of the 
arguments resorted to by the opponents during 
this debate is precisely in line with those now 
used by the official Englishman in the unholy 
war against the South African Republics, and 
with the atrocities committed in the suppres- 
sion of the uprising in India. 

Let us suppose, for an instant, that if the 
English government, with its vastly superior 
military and naval power, had succeeded in 
crushing the colonial army and bringing the 
colonists under subjugation, is there the 
least doubt that Washington, Jefferson, Adams 
and all the other prominent * 'rebels,'' the sign- 
ers of the Declaration of Independence most 
particularly, would not have been more lenient- 
ly dealt with than were the heroes of the Indian 
uprising, who were shot from the cannon's 
mouth? The consequences of such a result 
upon the destinies of the whole civilized world 
are too appalling to contemplate. And still, 
after victory was achieved by the colonists 
and a Republican government was about to be 
formed, there were a large number of influ- 
ential men, known under the designation of 
Tories, who used their best efforts to organize 
the new government after the English pattern ; 
that is, with all its aristocratic features. Some 
contended for the President and members of 



The Referendum 33 

the Senate to hold their offices during good be- 
havior — that is, for Hf e ; some were opposed to 
the election of the members of the House of 
Representatives by the people; and still others 
thought it altogether unsafe to trust the peo- 
ple with the exercise of power in any branch 
of the general government; and it is mainly 
due to such stalwart Republicans as Franklin, 
Adams and others, that the Federal Constitu- 
tion, while not faultless, has not been twisted 
into a patchwork for the facile manipulation 
of a ruling class. The American people, hav- 
ing escaped this calamity, have withstood 
many trials since, but they have manfully 
stood the crucial test in every great emergency, 
and the question, "Will the American Republic 
permanently endure?" has long since ceased 
to be seriously considered. 



Chapter IV. 

POLITICAL DEGENERATION. 

The United States may be said to have 
evolved out of a small number of self-govern- 
ing settlements into a unique common- 
wealth, both in a political and social aspect. 
Its people were the first ever recorded to have 
started their national existence with the bold 
pronunciamento, '*A11 men are created equal;'' 
the first so peculiarly blessed with institutions 
favorable to the development of human facul- 
ties, the promotion of individual and public 
well-being, and for the exercise of rational 
freedom. The aggressive step of the colonists 
in vindication of human rights precipitated 
them into an unequal conflict with a powerful 
monarchy; but on the other hand, the heroic 
action of this handful of patriots enlisted the 
sympathies of liberty-loving Frenchmen, by 
whose assistance they succeeded in maintain- 
ing their manly stand. While the war was 
raging the thirteen colonies constituted them- 
selves into a confederacy, under the style of 
the United States of America. The Articles 
of Confederation were soon found to be inade- 
quate in many respects, unnecessary here to 

34 



The Referendum 35 

enumerate, all of which affected mere material 
interests, however, nothing having occurred in 
the meantime to necessitate, or justify the mod- 
ification or elimination of the cardinal prin- 
ciples therein enunciated, namely: the explicit 
recognition of the people's ultimate power and 
constant control over their agents, the Repre- 
sentatives. As a historic document in the evo- 
lutionary process of the Republic these Arti- 
cles of Confederation stand, in one point at 
least, next to the Declaration itself; in that 
point it is the embodiment of the people's most 
cherished rights. These articles have been the 
subject of ridicule and villification, but the 
first paragraph of Article Five, which contains 
the gist of the American Bill of Rights, con- 
founds the trifling scoffer. Here is its ver- 
batim text: ''For the more convenient man- 
agement of the general interests of the United 
States, delegates shall be annually appointed 
in such manner as the Legislature of each 
state shall direct, to meet in Congress on the 
first Monday in November, in every year, with 
a power reserved to each state to recall its del- 
egates or any of them, at any time within the 
year, and to send others in their stead for the 
remainder of the year!' 

This article contains all the rights and the 
power, and more than the American people 
contend for to-day. It is the full recognition 



36 The Referendum 

of the principle of self-government, in perfect 
harmony with the letter and spirit of the 
Declaration. It must be remembered, how- 
ever, that among the members of the Confed- 
erate Convention there were fourteen signers 
of the Declaration who, inspired by the great 
truths subscribed to by themselves, were anx- 
ious to clothe them into the forms of organic 
law. These men, who, for the sake of their 
political convictions had run the risk of Great 
Britain's executioners, were determined that, 
all doubts as to the power of the people on the 
one hand and that of the Representatives on 
the other, should be removed by some spe- 
cific provision, and the insertion of the above 
''imperative mandate" was the result. 

The War for Independence was not an un- 
mixed good; it secured independence to the 
people of the country, but it also had the effect 
of forcing local and personal interests to the 
foreground, while the great principles for 
which the battles had been fought were being 
obscured. 

Thus, while the Constitutional Convention 
of 1787, was composed of the ablest men of the 
country, it was not, in the aggregate, an as- 
sembly with the sole end in view of perfecting 
a governmental fabric of ''By and for the peo- 
ple;" but rather one with a view of compro- 
mising conflicting interests, of which the insti- 



The Referendum 37 

tution of slavery formed the main subject of 
controversy. ^'Should slaves be considered as 
men or as property?'' '^Should the slaves 
be represented in Congress?'' etc. The final 
outcome was ably described by Governor Mor- 
ris, who said : ^'Thus, by a bargain between the 
commercial representatives of the Northern 
States and the delegates of South Carolina 
and Georgia, and in spite of the opposition of 
Maryland and Virginia, the unrestricted 
power of Congress to pass navigation laws 
was conceded to the Northern merchants, and 
to the Carolina rice planters, as an equivalent, 
to twenty years continuance of the African 
slave trade. This was the third great compro- 
mise. The other two were the concessions to 
the smaller states of an equal representation in 
the Senate, and to the slave-holders the count- 
ing of three-fifths of the slaves in determining 
the rates of representation. If this third com- 
promise differed from the other two by in- 
volving not only a political but a moral sac- 
rifice, there was this partial compensation about 
it: it was not permanent like the others, but 
expired at the end of twenty years by its own 
limitation." 

Thus, between these conflicting interests, 
the most sacred interests of the people — ^that of 
their sovereign rights — were lost in the shuffle, 
and their power in the state was bodily, and 



38 The Referendum 

without reserve, handed over to their agents 
in Congress. 

In the first article of the Federal Constitu- 
tion it is provided that, '^All legislative power 
herein granted shall be vested in a Congress 
of the United States, which shall consist of a 
Senate and a House of Representatives." Note: 
All povv^ers to legislate. That is all that is 
meant by the term sovereignty; the supreme 
and imperial power of the people. This short 
article of the Federal Constitution was the 
stroke of the pen that eliminated from the or- 
ganic law of the land the last vestige of that 
vaunted supremacy of the people; it left but 
the shadow in their hands, and being neces- 
sarily followed by the framers of State Con- 
stitutions, the whole governmental fabric of 
the American Union was transformed from 
one of delegated to one of original powers — 
in fact if not in theory. 

Consequently, while the American people 
have improved their grand opportunities 
in certain directions, and have advanced 
with giant strides upon almost every 
field of human endeavor, upon that of 
public concern they have not only failed 
to take any forward step, but have lost 
considerable ground. Th^y have permitted 
the most important branch of their political 
existence to drift from the high ideals enun« 



The Referendum 39 

ciated in the Declaration of Independence into 
the slough of political partisanship ; their proud 
self-assertion, evinced in all other fields, has 
degenerated into blind subservience to political 
party dictation, and their former patriotic 
devotion to the basic principles of the Republic, 
into unreasoning attachment to party ; in short, 
they have permitted American citizenship to be 
supplanted by un-American partisanship. In 
tracing this seeming anachronism to its source 
we easily perceive it to be the logical, hence 
inevitable, outgrowth of our uncontrolled and 
unchecked system of representation; that is, 
the unreserved transfer — or as much as 
was possible — of the people's power into the 
hands of good, indifferent or venal agents, 
who, for one reason or another, by honest or 
dishonest methods, for good or evil purposes, 
succeed in being elected to some legislative 
body. 

There was a time when the choice of repre- 
sentatives fell, as a rule, upon men of exalted 
reputation, character and superior education. 
In those days the Jeffersons and Franklins, the 
Hamiltons, Adamses, Madisons, Monroes, 
Clays, Websters and Calhouns, and of latter 
days the Summers, Trumbulls, Doolittles, Lin- 
coins and Douglases, and the rest of the intel- 
lectual giants stood in the legislative halls as 
the agents of the American people. 



40 The Referendum 

All these were selected as the free choice of 
the people, and elected and re-elected as long as 
they were willing to serve. They were chosen 
by a discriminating constituency for their high 
moral standing in the community, disinterested 
aims, and lofty patriotism. With such men 
the representative system was not brought to 
dishonor; it had a meaning; it represented the 
best sentiment, the noblest thoughts of the 
country. The civil war, however, with its de- 
moralizing tendencies, put an end to this ideal 
condition of things, and the politics of the 
country, imperceptibly, entered upon a new era. 
Individual fortunes had been amassed as if by 
enchantment, and a novel class of statesmen — 
men heretofore unknown to fame in public life, 
unfit by training, unworthy by character, but 
possessed of brazen effrontery — appeared upon 
the political horizon. Under the influence of 
this class the war had scarcely closed when 
the country was startled by rumors of corrup- 
tion and peculation in high official places, and, 
for the first time in the country's history, po- 
litical organizations under the control of 
"Rings and Bosses," for mercenary ends, came 
to the knowledge of the people. 



Chapter V. 

THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM. 

'The Representatives, to whom authority is 
delegated, are the servants of the masters, of 
their constituents, whose will it is their office 
to execute." — Walker's American Law, 

The representative system is an institution, 
in the several governments of the American 
Union, established upon as firm a basis as the 
governments themselves. It is an inheritance, 
so to speak, and has become an established 
principle in the political conceptions of the 
American people. 

But, while in former times it has proven to 
te the best method for carrying out the will of 
the people, that the system in our day is sadly 
in need of repairs is apparent to the most su- 
perficial observer. 

It cannot be denied that, generally speaking, 
the intellectual and scholastic standard of the 
legislative bodies of the country is below that 
of a hundred years ago, for which, however, 
as stated in the previous chapter, the people are 
not responsible. 

The decadence of the original idea that the 
representative is the servant of the people has 

41 



42 The Referendum 

been graaual but complete. The position, to- 
day, is exactly reversed. While formerly the 
people delegated their agents to do their pub- 
lic business, which they faithfully performed, 
to-day the agent assumes the role of principal 
and performs the public business to promote 
his own political advancement or interest. This 
grotesque presumption of representative su- 
premacy is thus curtly and definitely disposed 
of by Daniel Webster, the greatest expounder 
of the American Constitution: 

"The sovereignty of government is an idea 
belonging to the other side of the Atlantic. 
No such thing is known in North America; 
with us all power is with the people. They 
alone are sovereign, and they erect what gov- 
ernment they please." 

To appreciate this gradual deterioration of 
the representative system, and the obliteration 
of the spirit underlying it, we must take a ret- 
rospective glance to understand what the foun- 
ders conceived to be the mutual relationship 
between the people and their agents. 

Upon this point, George Washington held 
the following opinion: "The powers under 
the Constitution will always be with the peo« 
pie. It is temporarily intrusted to their repre- 
sentatives — their servants; they are no more 
than the creatures of the people.'' 

James Madison more emphatically says: 



The Referendum 43 

"The Federal and State Governments are, in 
fact, but different agents and trusts of the peo- 
ple, instituted with different powers. The ul- 
timate authority resides with the people alone." 

Judge Parsons, of Massachusetts, in the rati- 
fying convention of the state, characterized 
the Federal government as, ''A government to 
be administered for the common good by the 
servants of the people vested with delegated 
powers." 

Alexander Hamilton, in the ratifying con- 
vention of New York, while arguing in favor 
of the Constitution's adoption, said : ''What 
is the structure of the government? The peo- 
ple govern !" 

"Who gave may take back," said Chief Jus- 
tice Marshall, while emphatically speaking of 
the people's control over their representatives. 

Similar citations by the founders could be 
adduced by the score, if necessary, to remove 
any doubt as to their understanding of the 
relationship between the principals and their 
agents. 

The experience of the last forty years has 
forced upon every reflecting citizen the con- 
viction that a check upon legislative assump- 
tion and profligacy is absolutely necessary; 
and, since the people are the only superior 
power, this check must be applied by the peo- 
ple themselves. 



44 The Referendum 

It is not the intention of the advocates of 
this check to ''take back," in the language of 
the Chief Justice, any of the prerogatives of 
the representatives, but, simply, to improve the 
system by which their duties are regulated. 
Nevertheless, it seems timely to remind some 
of the people, who labor under the delusion 
that, having delegated some of their powers 
they temporarily, at least, have surrendered a 
part of their sovereignty, they are seriously 
mistaken. The fact is, were they willing to 
make such surrender, it would be null and 
void, since things inherent and inalienable can 
never be alienated upon any pretense whatever. 

The proposed attachment of a regulator to 
a fine piece of mechanism is an improvement 
to the machine. The Referendum is the regu- 
lator that must be applied to the Representa- 
tive system to bring the country back to its 
original civic status. 



Chapter VI . 



MACHINE RULE. 



In his expose of the notorious operations of 
the Tweed ring in New York, Samuel J. Til- 
den has aptly defined the construction and aims 
of such combines: "The political ring," he 
says, "encircles enough influential men of each 
party to control the action of both party ma- 
chines ; men who in public push to extreme the 
abstract ideas of their respective parties, while 
they secretly join hands in schemes for per- 
sonal power and profit/' 

"The head of this ring is a commander,*' 
says Mr. Bryce in his American Common- 
wealth. "He dispenses places, rewards the 
loyal, punishes the mutinous, concocts schemes 
and negotiates treaties. He generally avoids 
publicity, preferring the substance to the pomp 
of power, and is all the more dangerous be- 
cause he sits, like a spider, hidden in the midst 
of his web." 

Low cunning, absolute unscrupulousness and 
a retentive memory for names and faces, are 
the essential attributes of a political boss. He 
also knows that conservatism is the ruling 
human sentiment; such conservatism as is ex- 



45 



4-6 The Referendum 

pressed in the popular idioms, ''Let well enough 
alone;'' ''Rather suffer the evils we have 
than fly to others we know not of." "Never 
change horses while crossing the stream," etc. 
Hence, permanency in matters political is the 
desideratum of the boss. As long as political 
party fealty is made a point of honor, and can 
be emphasized and maintained as a quasi-re- 
ligious test, while manly independence, civic 
pride and self-assertion may be successfully 
construed into political apostasy, so long the 
capture of a political machine is all that is 
necessary to make the "boss' " rule permanent 
and supreme. The methods of the "rings and 
bosses" in New York, as described by Mr. Til- 
den, are identical with those in Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago and other large 
cities; all work toward the same ends — polit- 
ical power and public plunder. These men, 
having stolen the liveries of time-honored party 
organizations, impudently parade before the 
public as custodians of their fellow citizens' 
political consciences. Their work is performed 
behind closed doors, within limited circles, and 
it is only before elections, when the so-called 
workers from the slums emerge to the light of 
day, in order to execute the plans of the bosses ; 
such, for instance, as fixing the primaries, stuf- 
fing the ballot-boxes, falsifying the returns, 
and, if necessary, to browbeat, maltreat and oc- 



The Referendum 47 

casionally maim or kill honest electors. Three 
or four individuals of obscure origin, without 
special qualifications, except that of arrogance, 
of questionable character and reputation, with- 
out a mandate from anybody, assume the po- 
litical guardianship of their respective party 
voters, prescribing who is and who is not a 
member in so-called good standing in their 
ranks ; what shall and what shall not form part 
of their party's program; who shall be Alder- 
men or Mayor of the city; Governor of the 
state; who shall represent the people in the 
State or Federal Legislatures; what shall be 
law and who shall administer justice in the 
.courts. 

The apparent indifference or acquiescence in 
these corroding conditions by the average citi- 
zen of large cities stand out in shocking con- 
trast with the keen perception of right and 
wrong shown by him in all pursuits of daily 
concern, and while his strict business integrity, 
his spirit of enterprise and untiring energy in 
every other activity challenges universal ad- 
miration, his lack of individual self-assertion 
and his apparently "easy" civic conscience have 
become a byword and reproach. Nor can this 
surprising anomaly be explained by the com- 
mon saying. "Our universal chase after the 
Almighty dollar,'' for no people on the globe 
can show more admirable results in the field 



48 The Referendum 

of philanthropic, artistic and Hterary endeavor 
during the last half of the last century; nor 
is it a lack of interest in the welfare of the Re^ 
public, for in every great crisis they have risen 
to the emergency with a disinterestedness and 
singleness of purpose possible only to a people 
with an exalted love of country. 

How, then, is this singular paradox to be 
explained? Is it not an over-zealousness of 
party fealty, party prejudice, in a word, party 
idolatry in elections of municipal import only, 
which has rendered these citizens blind to every 
other consideration? Are these overzealous 
partisans, who would scorn the slightest act 
of dishonesty in their private business dealings, 
aware of the fact that, by a continued support 
of this corrupt political system with their votes, 
they make themselves particeps criminis in the 
high crimes and misdemeanors committed 
through its agency against the community? 

They cannot plead ignorance about matters 
that are notorious; as, for instance, the fact 
that the principal, if not the sole inducement 
for the venal and vile to engage in politics and 
make it a profession, that the main source of 
corruption of our legislative bodies, both state 
and municipal, and the pollution of our jury 
system, are due to the exploitation of public 
utilities by private corporations. 

Innumerable cases in point might be cited 
in support of these allegations, but one of the 



The Referendum 49 

most flagrant illustrations of recent date is that 
of the Pennsylvania street-railway bills, in 
which the methods of the political machine and 
representative turpitude, both state and munici- 
pal, in their most hideous proportions, are ex- 
posed. 

During the latter part of May, 1901, two 
bills were introduced, containing almost unlim- 
ited power for the exaction of pelf from the in- 
habitants of the villages and cities of the state. 
'These bills,'' says Hon. Clinton R. Wood- 
ruff, in an article published in Municipal Af- 
fairs, **were introduced without any previous 
public announcement. They came as a surprise 
alike to the public of the State and to the 
numerous existing street railway corporations. 
There had been no demand at this session for 
additional legislation on the subject, nor had 
there been any discussion of it. There was a 
reason for this to be found in the fact that some 
of the officers of the traction companies of 
Philadelphia and Pittsburg had recently been 
more or less active in opposing Senator Quay's 
re-election to the United States Senate. Here, 
then, was an opportunity to secure franchises 
of great value and, at the same time, punish 
those who had the temerity to oppose the ma- 
chine in the execution of its plans. In short, 
profit and revenge could be attained at the same 
stroke." 



so The Referendum 

Introduced at 3 p. m. on Monday, May 29, 
they were reported from the committee within 
five minutes, and by 8 150 p. m. the bills were 
printed and on the desks of the members of the 
Senate, and were passed by 9 p. m. on first 
reading. The Constitution provides that every 
bill must be read in place, presented to the chair, 
referred to a committee, reported therefrom, 
printed and read on three separate days. Here, 
then, we had the first five out of eight steps 
taken within six hours of one day. 

The next day the bills passed second reading, 
notwithstanding that it was a legal holiday 
(Memorial Day), and on the next day (Fri- 
day) they were passed finally, and were directed 
to be sent to the house for concurrence. 

Although Friday is the day usually of small 
attendance, and is usually set aside for first 
reading, there was a full attendance of the Sen- 
ate, and the bill's reading secured the necessary 
twenty-six votes on final passage. 

On the following Monday (June 3) the 
House, which usually meets on that day at 8 
or 8:30 p. m., was called to meet at 4 p. m., 
shortly after which hour the two bills were re- 
ceived from the Senate and at once referred to 
the Committee on Corporations. Although the 
rules of the House forbid a committee from sit- 
ting while the House is in session, this rule was 
disregarded, and, without any chance whatever 



The Referendum 51 

for any public hearing, the bills were brought 
back with a favorable recommendation. By 9 
o'clock of that evening the bills had passed first 
reading. On Tuesday they were amended so 
as to prevent or make difficult the inauguration 
of three-cent fares, and passed second reading. 
They were then returned to the committee for 
needed changes in phraseology and re-reported 
next morning. On Wednesday the bills passed 
finally. 

On both second and third readings attempts 
were made to incorporate amendments protect- 
ing the interests of the State and cities, but to 
no avail. Among the amendments overwhelm- 
ingly defeated were those providing for four 
•weeks' advertising of applications for fran- 
chises ; for making the future bestowal of fran- 
chises subject to existing laws; to abolish the 
right to lease, sell or convey the franchises; 
forbidding the lease or conveyance of franchises 
to parallel or competing lines; forbidding the 
issuance of stocks or bonds in excess of the 
actual cost of the road and its equipment; re- 
quiring that the roads be built or operated be- 
fore the franchises could be sold ; requiring ele- 
vated and underground railways to charge 
three-cent fares. Efforts to have the bills re- 
committed to afford a hearing for the interests 
involved were likewise defeated. In short, the 
T)ills were passed on schedule time by the com- 



52 The Referendum 

mittees and by the two houses, and no amend- 
ments or motions, except those favored by the 
machine. 

In six legislative days, two bills, radically 
changing the street railway law of the State 
and jeopardizing hundreds of millions of al- 
ready invested capital and affecting untold mil- 
lions of future franchises, were passed without 
a single public hearing, and, in one house, with- 
out any debate, and in the other with only a 
travesty of one. I venture to declare that this 
is a record of rapid legislation in flagrant dis- 
regard and defiance of public sentiment and in- 
terests unequaled in the history of any other 
State in the country. 

On July 7, at midnight, without a public 
hearing, and in the executive mansion, rather 
than in his public office, the Governor signed 
the bills in the presence of a dozen or more 
gentlemen. 

The Governor's action was officially puD-^ 
lished on the morning of July 8, and then the 
rush for charters began. The capitalists and 
politicians were early on hand at the State 
Department, and, as the secretary of the com- 
monwealth is a strong Quay machine man, he 
did not throw any obstacles in their way. Over 
one hundred applications for charters were filed 
between 7 and 10 a. m., of which thirteen were 
for Philadelphia companies. 



The Referendum 53 

On July 12 the ordinances were passed finally 
ly Select Council, and they were messaged to 
Common Council, which concurred in them all, 
sitting until 7 p. m. to accomplish this result — 
an hour beyond the time fixed for adjournment 
ty the rules. The record of councils was more 
expeditious, for it passed thirteen long and in- 
tricate ordinances through all the stages of leg- 
islation in three days. 

The next day, the 13th, the bills were tran- 
scribed and sent to Mayor Ashbridge for his 
consideration. Notwithstanding the statement 
of his private secretary that the ordinances 
would not be signed that day, they were, as a 
matter of fact, signed that evening, the Mayor 
returning from the ceremonies incident to the 
opening of the United States Mint, and remain- 
ing at his office until after midnight for the 
purpose. This action of the Mayor was un- 
doubtedly due to the offer of John Wanamaker 
to pay the city $2,500,000 for the franchises 
conferred by the ordinances, he having de- 
posited $250,000 with a trust company 
as earnest money. The letter conveying 
this proposition was handed to Mayor Ash- 
bridge by Mr. Wanamaker's private secretary. 
The Mayor contemptuously flung aside the let- 
ter when he saw the envelope, without taking 
the trouble to examine its contents. He has- 
tened back to his office, however, and did not 



54 The Referendum 

leave it until all the ordinances had been offi- 
cially approved. 

To sum up, we have two highly important 
bills touching a question of vital moment 
passed in six legislative days — the shortest pos- 
sible time under our Constitution — and ap- 
proved the next day at midnight without hear- 
ings of any kind. Then thirteen companies 
were incorporated under them in a single day. 
These thirteen ordinances, granting valuable 
franchises, were passed in three days, and 
signed the fourth day by the Mayor at mid- 
night, without hearing and in the face of a 
highly advantageous offer from a responsible 
and well-known citizen, who had deposited a 
quarter of a million as an earnest of his good 
faith. 

Many scandals have attended the granting 
of franchises in Philadelphia, but we have never 
had anything that quite equaled this. I have 
heard of the '^jamming'' process in legislation, 
but I never saw it applied with more vigor than 
in the instance described." 

Mr. Woodruff, a born Philadelphian, of an 
old and distinguished ancestry, a graduate of 
the University of Pennsylvania and a former 
member of the State Legislature, challenges 
"Any community in the United States to equal 
such a record of profligacy with the public as- 
sets, disregard of a public trust, and the subju- 



The Referendum 55 

gation of the law and lawmaking power for 
selfish private ends. If there is any city, large 
or small, which can show a similar record, I 
want to learn of it, simply to lessen the feeling 
of degradation I now experience." 



Chapter VII. 

KEPRESENTATIVE AND CORPORATE TURPITUDE. 

Were the founders of the Great American 
RepubHc to return to their terrestrial abodes, 
and contemplate the havoc that has been played 
with their vaunted system of Representation, 
their pain and resentment would equal that of 
the good Nazarene, at witnessing the divided 
house of which he was the architect and the 
many crimes committed in his name. 

To declare that, in the most wealthy and 
populous cities of the country, not a vestige 
is left of the spirit which gave the system its 
birth, is no exaggeration. It has sunk in pub- 
lic estimation to a travesty upon the very term 
Representative, and if there is a remedy for 
this condition of affairs, its application can- 
not be made too soon. 

For the last forty years we have gone from 
bad to worse as naturally ?nd logically we must 
have done. The best advice, and timely warn- 
ings of public-spirited men avail but little when 
these counsels are met by partisan idolatry. 

More than twenty years ago, Henry Ward 
Beecher described the dangers confronting the 
people in the following prophetic language : 

'^Suppose in an emxcrgency the railroad in- 

56 



The Referendum 57 

terest demands more legal privileges; suppose 
there was some great national question which 
demanded that the President of the United 
States should be a man and the Senate should 
be composed of men playing into the hands of 
the great national railroads' consolidated capi- 
talists, what power is there on the continent 
that could for a moment resist them ? It is not 
a great many years since it would seem atro- 
cious to have suggested that thought. But 
Legislatures have been bought and sold until 
we think no more about it than of selling so 
many sheep and cattle. Does anybody suppose 
that if it were a national interest that these 
vast corporations were seeking to subserve there 
is any legislation on this continent that could 
not be crushed or bought out by this despot, 
compared with which even slavery itself were 
a small danger? One of the greatest humilia- 
tions as a nation that is so justly proud of so 
many things is that which has fallen upon our 
Congress. When w^e see the slimy track of the 
monster we justly ask : ^What are we coming 
to?' There has got to be a public sentiment 
created on this subject or we will be swept 
away by a common ruin. 

"I tell you that the shadow that is already 
cast upon the land is prodigious. I do not be- 
lieve in the Sociologist, in the International, 
nor the Communist; but when I see what the 



58 The Referendum 

rich men as classes are doing with our Legis- 
latures, what laws they have passed, what dis- 
regard there is to great common interests, I fear 
that the time will come when the workingmen 
will rise up and say that they have no appeal 
to the courts; no appeal to the Legislatures; 
that they are bought and sold by consolidated 
capital, and when the time comes unless it 
brings reformation it will bring revolution. If 
any such time does come, I do not hesitate to 
say I will stand by the common people for the 
encouragement of the working people and 
against the consolidated capital of the land." 

Mr. Beecher's picture was sketched from 
nature at the time. One painted from scenes 
of today would require a much larger canvas, 
for the railroad consolidated capitalists of 
twenty years ago were infants c^^mpared to the 
giants of our time. 

But with the growth of these combinations^ 
which "continue to buy Legislatures as sheep 
and cattle are bought," has come informa- 
tion, not only to the workingmen, but to alt 
classes ; and if there is a revolution in prospect 
— as Beecher predicted such conditions must 
foster — it will not be fought with bullets, but 
ballots. 

Under popular institutions, with free speech 
and an unfettered press, "murder will out." 
There need be no fear of forcible revolution 



The Referendum 59 

as long as the avenues of information are kept 
open — injunctions and judicial-contempt pro- 
ceedings notwithstanding. Correct informa- 
tion crystallizes public opinion, and, in time, 
outweighs all the wealth railroads, steel kings 
and gigantic corporations can command. 

Necessarily, this cr.ystallizing of public senti- 
ment has been of slow growth ; but, whenever 
and wherever an opportunity is given — free 
from partisan politics — it is made evident with 
clearness and decision. 

The information is spread broadcast that, 
the representatives of our State and municipal 
Legislatures, who, from year to year, have 
grown less representative, have joined hands 
with the most unscrupulous politicians in for- 
mulating plans to place the people of cities 
under contribution. The exploitation of pub- 
lic utilities by private parties, or corporations, 
offer the most lucrative opportunities for this 
purpose, and franchises have become a pur- 
chasable commodity. There is not a city of 
100,000 inhabitants in this country that has 
not been thus victimized. It is now univer- 
sally recognized that, the granting of fran- 
chises to private corporations for the exploita- 
tion of public utilities by the State or munici- 
pal law-making bodies, has proven to be but 
a legalized system of extortion, and the prin- 
cipal cause of the political degeneration- in 



6o The Referendum 

cities ; that the magnitude of unbridled license 
with which the representative bodies of our 
states and municipalities have prostituted their 
power to legislate, is but the legitimate out- 
come of these abnormal political and economic 
conditions. 

For corroboration of these assertions the 
following retrospective glance over the his- 
tory of street-car legislation during the last 
forty years, from an editorial of the Chicago 
Tribune is herewith reproduced : 

"The first grant of the sort in Baltimore, 
for example, made in 1859, was the subject of 
public scandal, protesting mass-meetings, and 
a bitter and diversified but fruitless contest 
which was carried even to the Legislature. 
Half a dozen years later the Illinois Legisla- 
ture passed, against public protest and over 
Governor Oglesby's veto, the ninety-nine year 
act. In 1884 the Broadway grant was secured 
by bribing twenty-two out of the twenty-four 
members of the New York Board of Aldermen 
with a fund of $750,000. Some of the cul- 
prits were imprisoned; then prosecutions 
ceased. 

''In 1895 the Buffalo City Council passed 
and the Mayor approved a five-cent fare ordi- 
nance for sixty-six miles of new lines in the 
face of an offer of a three-tickets-for-io-cents 
rate for the same lines on terms approximately 



The Referendum 6i 

the same in other respects, and the grant was 
''fought in the courts'' by citizens to no pur- 
pose. A year or two later the Ohio Legisla- 
ture passed the notorious fifty-year extension 
law for all the Cincinnati street railways. In 
1898 and 1899 the Missouri Legislature and 
the St. Louis City Council fastened upon that 
city an unregulated five-cent fare street rail- 
way monopoly for something like forty years, 
and the people were so inured to being ''sold 
out'* in such matters that they simply remained 
utterly apathetic. 

"In the spring of 1899 the Indiana Legis- 
lature and the Indianapolis City Council im- 
posed upon the latter city a thirty-five year 
street car monopoly against which public pro- 
test was raised in vain. In the following De- 
cember a similar event took place in Milwau- 
kee, except that the defiant — though ineffective 
— mass-meetings were peculiarly numerous 
and prolonged. A few months ago the Colum- 
bus City Council granted an extension of street 
railway privileges with a four-cent fare in the 
face of a reliable offer of three-cent fares, and 
the subsequent Mayoralty election registered 
popular resentment which was only as help- 
less as it was pronounced.'' 

The editorial closes with the following sig- 
nificant remarks : 

"Many thoughtful and conservative persons 
have become thoroughly convinced that the 



62 The Referendum 

dangers inherent in the extension of munici- 
pal functions are unquestionably less than the 
evils of corporate grants. Traction companies 
should know that municipalization of car lines 
is ceasing to be the popular bogey it has been." 

According to the following dispatch, the 
"apathetic'' conduct of the St. Louis electorate 
has borne its fruit. Had the forty-year fran- 
chise, presented to the street car corporations 
of 1899, been submitted to a popular vote, the 
city of St. Louis would have spared itself the 
humiliation of having one-half of its aldermen 
indicted by the grand jury today. 

"Judge Ryan ordered the jury to press the 
investigation with all its power, and to let no 
guilty man, however high his financial or so- 
cial standing escape punishment. Judge Ryan 
said, in part : 

"The work and report of the last grand 
jury revealed appalling conditions touching 
bribery of public officials. 

"These revelations indicate that men in high 
positions in the social life and commercial ac- 
tivities of this community have, in their en- 
deavor to secure public franchises for private 
gain, not hesitated to bribe members of the 
Municipal Assembly to betray the public inter- 
ests and welfare they were elected to protect. 

"No graver danger exists than this infa- 
mous method of robbing the people by corrupt- 



The Referendum 63 

ing their trusted representatives. It is a men- 
ace to our civic and political life. It is an- 
archy, for it strikes an insidious and deadly 
blow at government. 

"It substitutes the debauching moneyed 
power of criminally responsible combinations 
and corporations, acting through their venal 
agents or hirelings and unscrupulous public 
officers, for the lawfully constituted authority 
vested by the people in the municipal legisla- 
tive body to be honestly and faithfully admin- 
istered. 

"The higher the position of the persons who 
bribe, or are bribed, the greater is their moral 
responsibility, because the more potent for evil 
is their wicked example, but to all who so of- 
fend, be they high or low, powerful or humble, 
there should be meted out certain, swift, and 
severe punishment. 

"Have a care that none who are innocent 
shall be branded, but have equal care that none 
'escape being brought to the bar of justice who 
are, in your best judgment, on the evidence pre- 
sented, guilty." 

After instructing the grand jury as to its 
duties and privileges, Judge Ryan dismissed 
it to meet the following day. 

The exposure, however, of the recent colos- 
sal street car operation, in which members of 
the State Legislature, the Governor of Penn- 



64 The Referendum 

sylvania, the members of the City Council^ 
and Mayor of Philadelphia, conspicuously fig- 
ure as conspirators, seems to be the closing 
chapter to the people's many pages of startling 
legislative disclosures. It comes from the pen 
of a distinguished citizen of the Quaker City : 



Chapter VIII. 

GOVERNMENT OF CITIES. 

"The old contest for the integrity of the 
nation," says Samuel Cooper, *'is forever set- 
tled. The new conflict is for purity in the 
government of great cities, the municipal units, 
which so largely control the nation. This is the 
final work of the century.'' 

If, as Mr. Cooper says, there is a conflict 
for purity in the government of cities — as is 
generally admitted — what has caused this im- 
purity? The mere fact that a city contains a 
hundred thousand or several million inhabi- 
tants cannot cause its government to grow cor- 
rupt. At first, there have been some spe- 
cial opportunities offered to a comparatively 
small number of its citizens, with itching palms 
and easy consciences, to enrich themselves 
without unnecessary trouble or irksome toil. 
In the second place, since the common interest, 
the instinct of self-preservation, and a desire 
for participation in the government by the in- 
habitants of large or small communities is 
necessarily the same, it is plain that if left 
free they would have crushed any attempt 
to defraud them, or rob them of these rights 

65 



66 The Referendum* 

and immunities. Hence, it was deemed expe- 
dient by the parties of the first part to devise 
some method by which the mass of the people 
might be placed under the tutelage of some ex- 
traneous power in the State. City Charters 
offered the speediest and most plausible oppor- 
tunity for carrying out the project. 

This has since proven to be the principal 
cause of the impurities in the government of 
great cities. 

At the close of the Eighteenth Century there 
were only five cities in the country with a 
population exceeding 10,000; New York, the 
largest, had but 35,000. The rest consisted of 
small agricultural communities. The City of 
Boston was managed under the New England 
town-meeting system until 1822, when its pop- 
ulation had reached the 40,000 figure. Today 
there are 157 cities, which, in the aggregate, 
contain nearly 20,000,000 inhabitants. 

But even in those early days, the "Hub'' was 
not without some people who were not willing 
to subserve their private interests to the pub- 
lic good; a governmental system for the city 
in which all the people had their say, did not 
offer the opportunities a special charter would 
for the introduction of selfish schemes. Hence, 
that mediaeval system was suggested by a small 
but influential minority. The advocates were 
shrewd business men and lawyers of erudition. 



The Referendum 67 

They told the people that the swaddling clothes 
of the town-meeting was not a befitting gar- 
ment for a rapidly growing city; that with so 
large a population their individual participa- 
tion in public affairs had become too irksome 
and impracticable, and since the City Council, 
who would manage their common affairs would 
be of their own choice the change would be 
timely, wise and conducive to the public inter- 
est. 

Among those who were opposed to the 
change were such patriots and statesmen as 
John Adams and Josiah Quincy. They warned 
their fellow citizens of the dangers to their 
liberties by the abandonment of a system of 
self-government bequeathed to them by their 
fathers. A special charter, they said, may 
have its material advantages, but its adoption 
would involve the surrender of a great prin- 
ciple. Their sound advice was disregarded, 
however, and the advocates of a special charter 
carried the day. Boston's special-charter his- 
tory is that of all the other cities in the land. 

The people had had no experience to guide 
their steps; the special charter, a relic of the 
middle ages, was brought over from England, 
A\^here the sovereign was the grantor of all 
special privileges, but in a Republic, w^here the 
people are supposed to wield the sovereignty, 
the system is out of place. The very term 



68 The Referendum 

grantor is obnoxious to the democratic ear; 
it conveys the idea of a grant by a sovereign 
to a subject; practically, it places the grantee 
under the control of the grantors, a relation- 
ship irreconcilable with the spirit of demo- 
cratic institutions; it robs the inhabitants of 
cities of the privileges and rights enjoyed by 
their fellow-citizens of the rural districts and 
towns, and, lastly, by the very nature of its 
special creation, a city charter breeds mischief 
and corruption. 

For a State Legislature to deliver the in- 
habitants of a municipality to the mercy of 
corporated freebooters for an indefinite term, 
under the flimsy pretext that they have become 
too numerous to manage their local affairs, 
under the primitive methods of the town-meet- 
ings, is not less arbitrary and tyrannical be- 
cause it is done under the form of law. It is 
purely legalized spoliation. It is a veritable 
fact that the inhabitants of American cities, 
cursed with legislative charters, are less free 
and more exposed to individual and corporate 
rapacity than those of the European cities sit- 
uated in the midst of despotic, military gov- 
ernments. It is of historic record that self- 
government of cities in continental Europe 
was the rule from most ancient times. During 
Rome's supremacy the large cities of Germany 
were all locally governed and perfectly inde- 



The Referendum 69 

pendent of kings or princes; did not pay trib- 
ute or taxes, nor did they furnish military con- 
tingents for the wars waged by their countries 
against the Romans. Subsequently they be- 
came the Reich-Stadt (Cities of the Realm), 
and, although acknowledging the Emperor's 
sovereignty, always retained the principle of 
self-government in local affairs. It is, there- 
fore, to this long experience in home-rule that 
the present exemplary administration of the 
large cities in many parts of Europe is to be 
attributed. The officials in charge of the vari- 
ous departments have always been experts or 
men of scientific attainments in their respective 
callings. The city councils are chosen from a 
class of men, noted and est^eemed for their pur- 
ity of character and superior intelligence ; they 
are generally men of leisure, retired from an 
active career in some business, industry or pro- 
fession, who feel honored by the trust reposed 
in them by their fellow citizens, and serve with- 
out compensation. Moreover, when important 
public measures are to be taken, or great im- 
provements contemplated, requiring large ex- 
penditures, the whole electorate is generally 
consulted. 

It must be admitted, that, owing to dissimi- 
larity of social and political conditions, com- 
parisons can not properly, nor justly, be made; 
nevertheless, it would seem that in other re- 



70 The Referendum 

spects the American cities ought to possess 
great advantages over those of monarchical Eu- 
rope. Since it has been possible for the people 
of the latter, under aristocratic institutions, ta 
establish and maintain local self-government, 
it is obvious that its establishment in the cities 
of republican America, should be a simple mat- 
ter of course. 

Objectors to popular home-rule of the peo-^ 
pie in our American cities speak disparagingly 
of the large number of foreigners among the 
citizens, of a heterogeneous population ; aliens, 
etc. These objections, however, are generally 
modified in accordance with the political bias 
of the objector. If the foreigner most fre- 
quently votes his ticket, the foreigner is a de- 
sirable acquisition to the body politic; if not, 
he is unfit, or rather, "unripe" for self-govern- 
ment, no matter though he be as well quali- 
fied, as honest and as public spirited as the ob- 
jector himself. 

It is true that all populous centers of the 
United States, to a large degree, are composed 
of a heterogeneous population, with divers na- 
tional characteristics, of opposite customs and 
habits, of different degrees of intelligence and 
education. It must be remembered, however, 
that these various elements are generally found 
to dwell together in particular localities. The 
use of the same language and their material 



The Referendum 71 

condition may be the best reason for these na- 
tionalistic settlements. Without wishing to 
draw invidious comparisons, it may be said, 
the moral and intellectual standard varies in all 
these different sections; in some the standard 
is much higher than in others. But it would be 
absurd to accept as a standard for the whole 
city, any one^ or even a number of these sub- 
divisions. There is ample proof, however, to 
show that the moral and intellectual average of 
Chicago's, New York's, or Boston's popula- 
tion is as good, and their information probably 
better than that of a similar number of people 
residing in the rural districts, and it is the 
failure of the average reformer to recognize 
and appreciate this fact that has created in his 
mind an imaginary problem of governing large 
cities. 

He inveighs against these inhabitants as 
being less intelligent, less law-abiding, less 
thrifty; consequently less competent for self- 
government than the inhabitants of country 
districts, without a plausible argument or a 
proof in support of this singular hallucination. 

But since indolent and disreputable charac- 
ters do congregate in large cities, this fact is 
seized upon as of sufficient reason to declare the 
overwhelming majority of reputable, law-abid- 
ing citizens, unripe for self-government, incapa- 
ble to manage the common affairs of a public 



72 The Referendum 

corporation of which they are the only inter- 
ested and responsible stockholders. This con- 
fusion of ideas, which prevails in the mind of 
the average reformer, is exemplified in an ad- 
dress on the subject of corruption in large cities, 
delivered by a former Comptroller of Greater 
New York, to the students of the Illinois Uni- 
versity : 

''The great civic and political problems of 
this country today," he says, ''were born of 
the social conditions that exist in the cities, 
and there the fight for more intelligence and a 
higher standard of public honesty must be 
fought and won. No serious danger to Ameri- 
can institutions lurks anywhere in the broad 
and fertile prairies of Illinois or the West, 
where patriotism is universal and honesty the 
inherent birthright of every citizen. 

"But in the great cities of the East and West, 
with their teeming, struggling, restless thou- 
sands, who, tasting liberty for the -first time, 
are prone to mistake it for the intoxicating li- 
cense of unreasonable freedom, there are prob- 
lems that require for their just settlement the 
w^isdom and patience of the best citizenship." 

The Comptroller evidently overlooked the 
fact that the incentives offered to individual 
rapacity and corporate greed, such as street 
cars, gas and electricity, and many other pub- 
lic utilities, are not to be found on the "broad 



The Referendum 73 

and fertile prairies of Illinois or in the West." 
and that there are no inducements for corrupt 
politicians in the rural districts to organize 
rings and create political "bosses" ; hence, it is 
natural that "patriotism is universal and hon- 
esty the inherent birthright of every citizen" — 
whatever that means. Having thus fixed the 
responsibility of corruption in large cities upon 
the teeming, struggling, restless thousands, 
who, tasting liberty for the first time, etc., etc., 
he proceeds in the next breath to accuse the 
"prominent" and "respectable" of neglect of 
their civic duties. 

"Corruption in state and municipal govern- 
ment," he says, "has too long been accepted 
in this country as a matter of course. There 
has been a growing tendency among men who 
were otherwise good citizens to shirk public 
duties. They wanted to keep out of politics 
and public life, but in keeping out they made 
room in both places for men who ought to be 
in jail. 

"Political machines, so-called, have been cre- 
ated in states and cities; the franchises and 
public utilities that were the property of the 
people have been made the circulating medium 
between dishonest politicians and unscrupulous 
corporations. In the large cities of the coun- 
try the people have been in the habit of sub- 
mitting to bad government until it got beyond 



74 The Referendum 

the stage of endurance, when they would rise 
up in their might and put the other party in 
power, and then go about their private affairs 
believing, perhaps, that they had done all that 
good citizens could do/' 

"Create in any state of municipality the im- 
pression that a political pull will pass a bill or 
pave the way for a payment of an unjust claim, 
and the seeds of political dishonesty have been 
planted deep in fruitful soil, where they will 
sooner or later bring forth a harvest of cor- 
ruption. Already the impression is widespread 
that the rules of honesty deemed necessary in 
private business life need not apply to the pub- 
lic service. Too many politicians hold that it 
is legitimate fruit of partisan victory to make 
money out of the public treasury. 

''When the cohesive power of corruption 
has made political influences strong enough to 
defy public opinion they will oppress the busi- 
ness interests they cannot blackmail, and repre- 
sentative government is then in danger. 

''The old system of stealing from the public 
treasury has passed away, and the safer and 
more profitable plan of bartering political in- 
fluence for cash or stock in corporations has 
succeeded. But while the politicians have been 
improving their methods, the people have been 
learning some valuable lessons. The old 
method of trying to reform bad government 



The Referendum 75 

by turning out one set of politicians and put- 
ting in another set is no longer popular. The 
people are beginning to understand that the 
government under which they live, in city or 
state, is going to be all the time pretty much 
what they make it. If good citizens neglect 
their civic duties the politicians will take the 
office^ and everything else that is not chained 
down. 

"Bad political government may be tolerated 
for a time, but corrupt politics and corporate 
greed in combination call for prompt measures 
for the protection of the rights of the people." 

There is much truth, but some that is fal- 
lacious in the above. 

There is not the least doubt, for instance, that 
"corruption in state and municipal govern- 
ment has too long been accepted in this coun- 
try as a matter of course;" but it is incorrect 
to state that there has been a growing tendency 
among men, who were otherwise good citizens, 
to shirk public duties. There has been a grow- 
ing disgust on the part of the best citizens, with 
the political methods now employed, and hav- 
ing neither the time nor the inclination to or- 
ganize and fight year after year, the well-organ- 
ized forces of the political bosses, they are 
practically debarred from the performance of 
their public duties ; and if "a class of men have 
taken their places who ought to be in jail," it 



76 The Referendum 

is not due to these disfranchised citizens but to 
a wealthy class of men, who were successful in 
managing the bosses. 

"Bad political government," the Comptroller 
says, ''may be tolerated for a time, but corrupt 
politics and corporate greed combined, call for 
prompt measures for the protection of the 
rights of the people." Unquestionably so. But 
what are the measures? Is it less democracy 
and more government by state commissioners, 
or, is it more democracy, that is to say, shall 
all the people be given a chance? 

If it were true, as the New York Comptrol- 
ler says, that, "The great civic and political 
problems of this country to-day were born of 
the social conditions that exist in the cities, 
with their teeming, struggling, restless thou- 
sands, who, tasting liberty for the first time, 
are prone to mistake it for intoxicating license 
of unreasonable freedom," then, in that case, 
we want less democracy. But it is not true; 
that is to say, the great civic and political prob- 
lems of this country have not been produced by 
the foreign born, whom the Comptroller by 
circumlocution is pleased to style, "the teem- 
ing, struggling, restless thousands," but by 
the greedy, unscrupulous and wealthy manipu- 
lators to the manor born ; hence, we evidently 
want more democracy, not in the party, but in 
the ethical sense. Let us see whether this po- 
sition may not be maintained. 



The Referendum 77 

The statement that poHtical machines have 
been created in states and cities is a truism, 
and it is, also, notoriously true ''that the fran- 
chises and public utilities that were the prop- 
erty of the people, have been made the circulat- 
ing medium of dishonest politicians and un- 
scrupulous corporations." Will it be main- 
tained that those who have created the polit- 
ical machines, or the officers and stockholders 
of unscrupulous corporations, were drawn from 
the mass of struggling foreigners, 'Svho have 
tasted liberty for the last time," half of whom 
imperfectly speak or understand the English 
language? If not, who were they? Is it not 
plain that, as a rule, they belonged to the class 
of men described in a former chapter, as hav- 
ing amassed individual fortunes during and at 
the close of our civil war, who appeared on the 
political horizon and startled the country by 
rumors of corruption and peculation in high 
official places; when, for the first time in the 
country's history, political organizations, un- 
der the control of rings and bosses, for mer- 
cenary ends, came to the knowledge of the 
people ? 

This placing of the responsibility for the 
prevalence of scandalous political conditions in 
our large cities, upon the shoulders of the so- 
called "aliens" is a most serious matter. Every 
foreign-born citizen feels the sting, and the slur 



yS The Referendum 

can best be resented by placing that responsi- 
bility wliere it fairly belongs, not only as a 
matter of vindication, but as one of sound pol- 
icy. Were this moral indictment against the 
mass of foreign-born sustained by facts the 
frivolous charge that they are not ripe for 
local self-government might not succesfully be 
disproved and might continue to be used as a 
stock argument and plausible pretext to de- 
prive large cities altogether of that inherent 
popular right, but the road to a healthy and 
effective solution of the so-called problem of 
the government of large cities, is rendered less 
difficult, since it can be undisputably estab- 
lished, with dates and names if necessary, that 
it is some of the prominent home-spun citizens 
moved by an avaricious and grasping propen- 
sity, who have debauched public life by induc- 
ing the disreputable and vile, native and for- 
eign born to seize upon the political field and 
make boodleism a lucrative profession. 

Now, since the Comptroller of New York 
talks so flippantly of his fellow-citizens, who 
"are tasting liberty for the first time," let us 
see what a journal of influence and reputation, 
published in his own bailiwick, says about it. 
In an editorial, commenting on this subject, 
the New York "Nation," in its number of 
March 26, 1896, writes as follows: 

"Now to which of these evils has the foreign 



The Referendum 79 

immigration contributed ? The matter on which 
the influence of the foreign immigrant has been 
most potent is city government. The govern- 
ment of New York has been undeniably for- 
eign and we admit shockingly bad. But, alas ! 
the government of other cities, Philadelphia 
for example, which is in native hands, is just 
as bad, and some say worse. So is that of St. 
Louis, Chicago, and Cincinnati. In all these 
cities the chief leaders in the work of corrup- 
tion have been Americans by birth, and as a 
general rule, it is Americans who have taught 
the foreigners the tricks of the trade. As to 
foreign illiteracy, we affirm it has not done us 
a hundredth part of the mischief wrought b»y 
native literacy. At no period in the history 
of the country has so much damage been done 
to our government as within the last year by the 
Congress which we have been in the habit of 
calling "British.'' They have exhibited igno- 
rance and folly in about equal proportions — 
ignorance about everything with which it be- 
hooves legislators to be acquainted, trade, com- 
merce, finance, currency, foreign relations — 
and yet every member of them knew how to 
write and read with different degrees of pro- 
ficiency, it is true, but all fairly well. Some 
had even read books and dictionaries, so it is 
quite plain that making foreigners read and 
write at their port of entry would not neces- 



8o The Referendum 

sarily make them more desirable additions to 
our voting population or to our halls of Legis- 
lation. Take again the "Boss" system, which 
is so rapidly changing the character of our 
state government. Who devised it? Why, 
the native born of New York and Pennsyl- 
vania. 

Does any one doubt for one moment that, if 
the ruling passion in Washington and Albany 
to-day was a sincere desire to do what was best 
for the country, what was most likely to pro- 
mote the comfort of the poor, and the safety, 
honor and welfare of the Nation, as these terms 
were understood by the founders, the exist- 
ence among us of five times as many illiterate 
foreigners as we now have could be witnessed 
without concern?'" 

Now, let us see what a former Governor of 
New York, the man who brought about the 
fall of ''Boss'' Tweed, the Hon. Samuel J. 
Tilden, had to say about the management of 
the city of New York by State Commissioners 
appointed by partisan Governors. In a speech 
in opposition to the bill creating a Board of 
Charities for that city in 1876, he said: 

"Nearly all the evils of misgovernment in 
our city, for the last twenty-five years, have 
been inflicted by just such legislation as is pro- 
posed in this bill. Abuses or wrongs of local 
administration sometimes spring from defects 



The Referendum 8i 

in the governmental system, and sometimes 
from the frailties of human society. The new 
expedient, even if intended in good faith as a 
reform, may be prolific of still greater evils 
than those calling for a remedy. But the mis- 
chief which always results from the violation 
of established principles of responsible gov- 
ernment, as evolved through centuries of ex- 
perience, can not be estimated. 

''A still greater danger results from the fact 
that the occasions for such changes are the 
opportunities for the worst designs of selfish 
cliques, factions and partisans. As early as 
1856 the non-partisan Board of Supervisors of 
the County of New York was instituted. It 
was a monstrosity in governmental experience. 
It was, practically, irresponsible; it every year 
absorbed new powers, until at last the frauds 
and crimes were generated which have become 
notorious in her public history. 



Chapter IX. 

PROPOSED REMEDIES. 

The Primary System. 

The remedies proposed are of the most va- 
ried kind. Some of the reformers scold the 
people for failing to fulfill their civic duties; 
that is, to take part in the primary elections. 
But suppose the obstructions for the fulfillment 
of these duties are so formidable as to actually 
prevent the citizen from effectively performing 
them? It is a notorious fact, for instance, that 
under the prevailing condition of partisan poli- 
tics, the ''bosses" are absolute masters of the 
situation ; they have an army of retainers, scat- 
tered throughout the wards and precincts of the 
city, as unscrupulous as they are themselves, 
under well instructed captains and lieutenants, 
thereby enabling them to dictate the nomina- 
tion of candidates and control the primary ma- 
chinery — law or no law — so effectively as to 
render independent voting nugatory. 

To illustrate. For more than a quarter of a 
century the citizens of the metropolis of the 
West had been compelled to submit to the 
indignity of ^'dumb figure heads'* at the pri- 



The Referendum 83 

mary elections of both the great parties. At 
every election they were made conscious of the 
fact that, the list of delegates to the nominat- 
ing convention had been selected beforehand 
by a small coterie of ward politicians under 
the control of the ''bosses." Consequently, all 
that remained for the unorganized voters was 
the task of depositing said list of delegates in 
the ballot box, handed to them by some "work- 
er;" or, if perchance there was an 'opposition 
ticket in the field, invariably to learn, after the 
polls had been closed, that the ''regular ticket" 
had been elected ; that is, counted in. At last, 
disgusted at thus being periodically forced to 
go through such farcical performances, the 
citizen ceased to take part in the primaries, and 
for many years the "Bosses" had the entire 
political field to themselves. 

Hoping to put an end to these scandalous 
proceedings and "resume the duties of citizen- 
ship," by legalizing the primaries, a number of 
public spirited citizens prepared a bill with 
that end in view ; had it introduced in the Gen- 
eral Assembly with many misgivings as to the 
result. It passed both houses, however, though 
championed with sarcastic smiles by the know- 
ing members of both political machines. 

On the side of its advocates there was great 
rejoicing at the unexpected result; the "go as 
you please" primaries were now a thing of the 



84 The Referendum 

past — it was said; while the legitimate party 
organizations would be maintained, the com- 
mittees would henceforth cease to act the role 
of political masters, and would be confined to 
the simple task of calling party conventions 
and providing ways and means far campaign 
purposes, etc., leaving the people free to select 
delegates and candidates according to their 
own wall and judgment. 

How honestly and earnestly, and with what 
result that law was carried into effect was 
demonstrated but a few months after its pas- 
sage. It was in June, 18^8, when the law was 
put in operation by one of the two parties — 
which happened to be the Republican. On the 
evening before the nominating convention the 
four principal bosses having received the satis- 
factory news that their workers in the wards 
had executed the program of selecting dele- 
gates instructed to vote for such and such can- 
didates, they at once prepared the list of the 
favored ones. 

This little arrangement was described in the 
next morning issue of the Chicago Tribune^ 
under the headline : 

HARMONIZE IN ADVANCE. 

"The established custom of holding a long 
caucus on the night before the county conven- 
tion was broken yesterday. The four bosses, 
with a few lesser lights, concluded they could 



The Referendum 85 

avoid a lot of trouble by arranging the pro- 
gram quietly in advance, and so it was an easy 
matter yesterday to agree on the foregoing 
ticket." 

In corroboration of the Tribune's statement, 
the Times-Herald had this to say concerning 
the packed convention about to convene : 

"The old organization or machine will have, 
on the face of returns from the primaries, about 
1,000 votes out of the total of 1,116 with which 
to put the slate through." 

The Chicago Record recorded the following : 

"Republicans will hold their county conven- 
tion in the First Regiment Armory to-day. The 
four principal 'bosses' are the complete masters 
of the situation as a result of yesterday's pri- 
maries. 

"The slate was not completed by the bosses, 
but they have agreed to meet at 8 o'clock this 
morning to arrange the vacancies, so the pros- 
pect of an acclamation convention confronts the 
115 delegates who will participate." 

The Chronicle in an editorial saicj : 

" THE PRIMARIES AND THE GANG. 

"Although the new primary act was passed 
for the sole object of defeating machine meth- 
ods in politics — to destroy the cut and dried 
system of nominations — the fact appears to be 
that it is already a predestined failure, as far 
as the Republican party is concerned. The Re- 



86 The Referendum 

publican primaries are to be held to-day in all 
parts of the city of Chicago and in the country 
towns of Cook County. 

"But the machine is in as full control as it 
ever was when brace primaries constituted the 
rule and honest nominations were the excep- 
tion. The 'slate' of candidates is already pre- 
figured as accurately as though the nominations 
already had been made.'' 

As was prognosticated by the unanimous 
statement of the Chicago press, the slate of can- 
didates, "already prefigured," was rushed 
through the nominating convention without a 
hitch, and in much less time than any nomina- 
tion ever made under the old "free and easy" 
primary system. 

But the most recent and most striking illus- 
tration of this primary election delusion, one 
that aroused public indignation as it never had 
been before, and stirred the best portion of the 
public press to most scathing denunciations, 
were the primary elections held by the Repub- 
lican party on the ist of March, 1901, for the 
election of delegates to the city convention to 
nominate candidates for Mayor, Treasurer, 
Attorney and Clerk. 

It had been said that the bosses had promised 
to keep their hands "ofif" ; that it was to be a 
contest free for all. Whether it was a childish 
belief in the "bosses' " declaration, or in obe- 



The Referendum 87 

dience to a preconcerted plan to deceive the 
Republican electorate, must be left to conjec- 
ture, but something like a half a dozen candi- 
dates, all of them reputable gentlemen, entered 
the race for the mayoralty. 

It would appear that the Republican press 
had full faith in the assumed neutrality of their 
party machine; exhorted the voters to take 
advantage of these free for all primaries and 
perform their civic duties by attending them, 
not only to secure their choice for Mayor but 
to make worthy nominations for Aldermen. 
On the 27th of February, two days before the 
primaries, an editorial appeared in the Chicago 
Tribune, in which an earnest appeal was made 
to the voters of both parties to attend the pri- 
maries. ''The appalling inundation of gang- 
sters," it said, ''renders the situation alarm- 
ing. 

"Every well-meaning citizen knows to what 
extent he has already co-operated toward this 
end ; and if any one is idle from not knowing 
precisely what to do, he may receive valuable 
suggestions from the Municipal Voters' 
League, whose thorough and detailed inquiries 
enable its officers to give precise and reliable 
counsel respecting the line of most available 
action in each ward. 

"With a few exceptions the entire electorate 
of the city is entitled to a part in either the 



88 The Referendum 

Republican or Democratic primaries. It is the 
duty of honest voters to 'go to the primaries' 
and insure worthy nominations. And more 
than that. It is their duty also not to be idle 
during the few intervening days." 

And this from the Record: 

"There is one way, and only one, by which 
municipal administration of Chicago can be 
reformed and brought up to the standard of 
efficiency, honesty and intelligence upon which 
private business is conducted, and that is by 
the citizens taking an individual interest in 
politics and doing their duty at the primaries. 

"Unfortunately Illinois' present primary law 
is not adapted to as full and free participation 
of the electors in the primaries as it should 
be, and it is to be hoped these defects will be 
cured during the present session of the Legis- 
lature." 

Here is what the Tribune had to say the day 
after the primaries : 

" MACHINE STILL IN THE SADDLE. 

"The total number of delegates will be 940, 
requiring 471 to nominate, and neither has any 
candidate a majority nor are there enough 
unpledged votes to control. Almost all of the 
unpledged delegates are the personal property 
of the ^machine' and can be depended on to go 
as the chief boss directs." 

This fearless arraignment of the "chief boss'* 



The Referendum 89 

by the principal organ of his own poHtical 
party and of the personal property of the 
''machine" was, from report, received with 
hearty approval by nine-tenths of the Repub- 
lican voters. 

The Chicago Record's comments were as fol- 
lows : 

'The proceedings in Saturday's Republican 
convention, where, after a mere pretense of 
responding to the wishes of the voters, the 
bosses' delegates were whipped into line in ac- 
cordance with the prearranged programme of 
the boss in charge, afford their own instructive 
lessons as to the futility of undertaking to 
secure honestly representative nominations un- 
der the present primary system and the dicta- 
tion of party bosses. Under such a primary 
law as that in force in Minneapolis, where vot- 
ers nominate party candidates when they regis- 
ter, and their ballots have a binding effect, it 
is possible to ascertain the wishes of the mem- 
bers of a party, and impossible for bosses to 
defeat those wishes. 

''The pitiful inadequacy of the prevailing 
system is shown by the fact that in a city which 
has more than 400,000 registered voters the 
entire Republican primary vote cast last Friday 
w^as only about 47,000. 

''The convention of Saturday was a farce, so 
far as it purported to be a convention giving 



90 The Referendum 

effect to the wishes of the primary voters. It 
was run by one man to meet one man's own 
personal and political interests. There could 
have been no plainer demonstration of the 
necessity of adopting such a primary system as 
shall make it impossible for the bosses to thwart 
the voters' will. 

As the Record pertinently remarks, "The 
pitiful inadequacy of the prevailing primary 
system is shown by the fact that, in a city 
which has more than 400,000 registered voters, 
the entire Republican primary vote cast last 
Friday was only about 47,000." 

It is to be supposed that the optimistic gen-^ 
tlemen of the press and of civic associations 
who pinned their faith in the prevailing pri- 
mary system as a specific against political bosses 
may have now been cured of their hallucina- 
tion. The small percentage of the Republican 
voters who took part in the primaries — they 
were wiser than their advisers — showed they 
saw the spider in the web and refused the invi- 
tation to enter. Whether their advisers will 
profit by this experience remains to be seen. 



Chapter X. 

OTHER REMEDIES PROPOSED. 

The recapitulation of the innumerable reme- 
dies suggested and expected to dethrone the 
''bosses/' and thereby restore to the people their 
political rights, is neither useful nor necessary. 
A few of such will suffice. 

Possibly the most unique is that of Mr. Sam- 
uel Brown, of Los Angeles, Cal., who, at the 
close of a highly interesting book on the evils 
resulting from partisanism, recommends the 
enactment by the State Legislature of the fol- 
lowing law : 

''The freedom of election, the purity of the 
ballot and the unrestrained voice of the citizens 
on the election of those who shall represent 
them, are primal rights of citizenship and must 
be neither hindered nor impaired. 

"That all political associations or parties 
organized or maintained for the purpose of 
nominating or electing candidates for public 
office, or of converting or influencing electors 
in the state, or seeking to control and distribute 
the public patronage for the use and benefit of 
such associations, are hostile in their influence 
and tendency to our free institutions and should 

91 



92 The Referendum 

be disfellowshiped and condemned by all good 
citizens. 

*'That long experience in this country with 
these combinations known as political machines 
has shown that the tendency of their influence 
and operations is to transfer permanently the 
sovereignty of the individual citizen to an irre- 
sponsible and often corrupt and dangerous fac- 
tion, which will use it unscrupulously for their 
own political advancement. Such action on 
the part of any combination of citizens is 
hereby declared unlawful and dangerous to 
the liberties of the people. 

''And it is further provided, more effectually 
to restrain the improper action of these par- 
ties, and free the commonwealth of their in- 
fluence, that any person chosen or nominated 
to office by such organizations shall not be eli- 
gible to the office of which they were thus 
nominated or chosen.'' 

This funny proposition to improve our polit- 
ical conditions illustrates the Yankee propen- 
sity of trying to make men good and honest 
through some drastic legal enactment. It is 
a curious deviation from their traditional ten- 
ets on popular self-government. Being cred- 
ited with a high degree of common sense, its 
employment in the study of "common law," 
the fundamental principle underlying the old 
town meeting institution, would greatly in- 
crease their reputation, in this direction. 



The Referendum 93 

Another, but more to the point, is a sugges- 
tion from a gentleman, who asks in the Cen- 
tury this pertinent question: ''Are the 
'Bosses' stronger than the people?'' and an- 
swers the query by advising "the resumption 
of the duties of citizenship, whenjhe govern- 
ment by blackmail, as it now exists, will be 
superseded by that of the people." 

The answer, no doubt, is pregnant as to the 
efficacy of his remedy ; but, since the choice of 
the nominees is with the "Bosses" of both par- 
ties, the choice must be between two evils, a 
situation in which the voter is forcibly re- 
minded of his political impotency — a predica- 
ment very offensive to his civic pride. Again, 
were the candidates of their own choosing, the 
voters have no guaranty that they will remain 
good after they are in. "White man is very 
unsartin," says the Indian. It is not difficult 
to prove that the destruction of the system of 
"Bossism" cannot be accomplished through 
"resumption of the duties of citizenship;" that 
such destruction is a condition precedent to 
civic resumption, and can be prevented by the 
^boss every time. 

Under normal conditions the voters of the 
respective primary districts are free to make 
their choice of delegates who are to represent 
— that is, act — for them at the nominating 
convention. Unless we have lost all faith in 



94 The Referendum 

popular government we must presume that in 
a majority of the districts of a city, the people's 
choice would fall upon the most worthy dele- 
gates. These may be instructed to vote for 
candidates for office known to the voters, or, 
may be sent unpledged. Impressed with the 
sacred trust imposed upon them, as well as to 
secure the approval of their constituents, these 
delegates would lend their aid in placing be- 
fore the people creditable candidates; but our 
conditions are no longer normal, and there- 
fore the resumption of the duties of citizenship 
is an impossibility. The adoption of the sys- 
tem known as the Minnesota Primary Law 
might prove efficacious against the ready-made 
delegate ticket, prepared by the "Boss/' but 
this would be a matter of persons only rather 
than measures. 

Another conscientious reformer, advancing 
many arguments to prove the insufficiency of 
all proposed remedies — except the right one — 
and deploring, what he terms, "the wasted 
force of most agitators," declares: "Justice, 
and justice alone, vigorously administered, can 
right political and social wrongs." 

Now, what is the cry for justice but the very 
essence of wasted force? Has not this cry 
been heard down the ages ever since Abel was 
slain by his brother Cain? When, and where, 
was this cry heeded by those who possessed 



The Referendum 95 

the power to prosper through injustice? Jus- 
tice, without dispute, is the specific for all 
social, political and moral wrongs. But why 
rely upon the spasmodic efforts of generously 
disposed individuals, which, at most, are of 
momentary avail? The admonition to per- 
form the duties men owe to each other, justly 
and in the fear of God, is as old as Moses. 
But the Roman proverb, ''Man is wolf to 
man," whenever opportunity offers, is older 
than Moses. 

What is the use of talking of justice as long 
as the fundamental rights of the people are 
withheld, and their political machinery pur- 
posely constructed with a view to its unjust 
manipulation. 

Since the Bosses are still in the saddle, and 
Thurlow Weed-like, "Want to know what you 
are going to do about it," Is it not about time 
to turn our attention to the people, who, in 
the aggregate, will forever remain the source 
of power, and who can demand justice, and 
vigorously enforce it? 



Chapter XL 

REASONING FROM FALSE PREMISES. 

The enemies of the Referendum for the peo-^ 
pie of large cities base their opposition upon 
the ground that the constantly employed man 
has not the time to become thoroughly con- 
versant with the intricacies of important pub- 
lic questions, and is absolutely uninformed 
concerning the management of great public 
utilities, such as the manufacture and distribu- 
tion of gas, electricity, the mechanism and 
operation of street car lines, etc., etc. 

Reasoning from false premises erroneous 
conclusions are the result. No sane man ex- 
pects the people to be experts in any of these 
public utilities, or in other activity of life, 
except that in which they are individually em- 
ployed ; in fact, no more nor any less, than the 
objector who sits in his sanctum, insurance, 
bank, mercantile, professional, or political of- 
fice, and has access to the general avenues of 
information easy to obtain. 

In order to be more specific, localization 
must be resorted to. All the people of Chi- 
cago know upon these questions, they have 
gained from experience, newspaper adverse 

96 



The Referendum 97 

criticism, civic associations, and the owlish 
^'prominent citizen." 

They well know they are furnished with an 
abominable street car service, an unsatisfac- 
tory system of transfers, exorbitant car-fare, 
and that they have given away their streets to 
men who are bribing public officials for the 
purpose of amassing millions, while their em- 
ployees are compelled to work from 12 to 13 
hours per day for only pay enough to keep 
body and soul together. 

The people also know by experience and by 
statements of the public press that they are 
paying for gas and electricity three and four 
times the cost of manufacture, and that the 
telephone companies would realize a handsome 
profit were their charges reduced to one-third 
of what they now are. 

Concerning the street car companies now 
under consideration the people have been 
strongly impressed by the public organs, by 
a special commission of the city council, and 
recently by the Mayor in a special message, 
with the fact that, the shortcomings of the 
traction companies were nothing less than a 
brazen violation of written agreements in con- 
sideration of which the companies were given 
permission for the use of the streets. 

This is all the people know and all they need 
to know to an intelligent use of the Referen- 



98 The Referendum 

dum. Good common sense and sufficient dis- 
crimination between right and wrong, of which 
the people of Chicago have given repeated evi- 
dence, is ample guarantee that the settlement 
which is now so vociferously demanded by the 
^'prominent citizen," shall be settled right. 
Common sense will teach the people not to 
trust the promises of men who eighteen 
years ago obtained a renewal of their fran- 
chises through precisely similar promises as 
they are making to-day, but have ever since 
persistently broke them, and the people's sense 
of fair play will tell them to exact fulfillment 
of entered engagements and the acceptance of 
such further stipulations as will be fair, both 
for the people and the companies, a condition 
precedent to an extension of any franchise. 

The people of Chicago, by a large majority, 
not less than seventy-five per cent, are intelli- 
gent enough to have discovered the colored 
brother in th^ wood pile ; they instinctively per- 
ceive it to be franchise extension, and if the 
gentlemen in and out of the city council who 
are speaking with so much assurance of the 
knowledge concerning the opinions and wishes 
of the people, are really candid, they will not 
refuse them a chance to speak for themselves. 

The question of public ownership forms no 
part of this volume further than to vindicate 
the right of the people to assume such responsi- 



The Referendum 99 

tilities whenever they come to the conclusion 
to do so, and to discuss the general principles 
involved. We all may safely trust the matter 
to time, expediency and the practicability of 
making use of that inherent right to the good 
common sense of the community, the wise and 
the unwise, the energetic and the laggard, the 
rich and the poor, the '"prominent" and the 
humble. The editors, and the members of the 
civic associations, including the officers and 
stockholders of the corporations now operating 
these public utilities will be entitled to equal 
rights with all their fellow citizens. Then "let 
the best man win ;" that is, let the best counsel, 
the most mature judgment prevail. 

No fear need be entertained as to the final 
result. In the discussion and final determina- 
tion of any one of such public measures, the 
spirit of political partisanship will necessarily 
be excluded, since Republicans, Democrats, 
Socialists, Prohibitionists and Single-Taxers 
are all equally interested to reach the best pos- 
sible conclusions. 

Nor will the people favor public ownership 
unless they are furnished with some guarantee 
that these public utilities shall not be managed 
or controlled by political machines; that the 
doors for the egress of political heelers of any 
party shall be hermetically closed ; that its man- 
agers shall be experts, that iron-clad civil ser- 

LofC. 



lOO The Referendum 

vice rules shall be adopted by which applicants 
for positions shall be examined strictly con- 
cerning their knowledge and experience in the 
position so sought, and not upon extraneous 
matters; as, for instance, scholastic proficiency 
and questions that may easily be answered by 
a school-boy of twelve, but may puzzle an 
experienced motorman or a foreman in some 
gas or electric plant; in other words, that a 
thoroughly practical civil service examination 
shall be a condition precedent to a favorable 
consideration of the question of municipal 
ownership by the people of Chicago. 

Concerning the general principles underly- 
ing the system of municipal ownership, we 
quote the following from an authority on po- 
litical economy. Prof. Henry Wood, who, in 
his work, *'The Political Economy of Natural 
Law,'' says : "The modern city, in many re^ 
spects, is a great copartnership. Some sentimen- 
talists hail municipal drainage, waterworks, 
lighting and possible rapid transit as successive 
steps in socialism. They are, however, only 
wise business methods of a great corporation. 
Circumstances make them expedient, but their 
purpose is not to absorb private interests, but 
to render them aid. The municipality can eco- 
nomically supply the citizen with water and 
light without the least impairment of his per- 
sonal rights and privileges. With the growth 



The Referendum loi 

of cities and profusion of inventions, an in- 
creasing number of functions can be performed 
by public administration. This is especially 
true, where, in services like those before men- 
tioned, unlimited private competition is not 
practicable. The supplying of water and light 
in a municipality involves the use of the public 
streets, which makes it a local, natural monop- 
oly. Therefore, if not owned by the city, it 
must at least be regulated by it." 



Chapter XIL 

FORWARD STEPS. 

Notwithstanding the demoraHzed condition 
of poHtics in many of the larger American 
cities, signs of popular revivals are to be seea 
in many parts of the United States. 

Thus, in the state of Iowa, twenty-five prop- 
erty owners in a city may command the Mayor 
to submit the question of municipal ownership 
of waterworks, gas works, electric lights, 
power plants, the granting of franchises for 
the same, or telephone systems, to a vote of the 
people. No power plant for water, gas or elec-^ 
tricity can be erected, franchise granted or sold 
for telegraph, telephone, or street railways 
without a popular vote thereon. 

In South Dakota, the Municipal Referen- 
dum has been introduced through a constitu- 
tional amendment, and with most admirable 
results. Its very existence on the statutes has 
prevented hasty or venal legislation. 

In Missouri, Minnesota, California and the 
State of Washington the larger cities are al- 
lowed to frame their own charters, and, there- 
fore, will be able to embody the Referendum, 
so essential to the good government of these 
cities. 

102 



The Referendum 103 

In Massachusetts, the timely veto of a con- 
scientious Governor defeated a traction 
scheme, hatched by the Legislature in conjunc- 
tion with a greedy corporation. 

In 1895, the construction of a subway for 
rapid transit was begun by the municipality 
of Boston, which, to the discomfiture of the 
opponents of municipal ownership, proved 
such a success that early in 1900 a second sub- 
way was suggested, though not until a year 
later did the subject take tangible form. 

A Legislative Committee, in charge of the 
matter, in disregard of the protest of the peo- 
ple of Boston, reported a bill by which the Bos- 
ton Transit Commission was to construct the 
new subway, to be paid for by the Elevated 
Railway Company, at a cost not to exceed 
$6,000,000, in consideration of a forty years' 
lease, without payment of rent. This bill 
passed both houses with large majorities. 

In vetoing this bill the Governor says : 

"There is no assurance that the subway can 
be constructed for $6,000,000. If, as is very 
likely to be the case, the cost is in excess of 
that sum, such excess must be paid by the city, 
without reimbursement from any source. To 
the extent of such excess of cost, the subway 
will be constructed at the expense of the city 
for the benefit of the proposed lessee. 

"Previous Legislatures have referred to the 



I04 The Referendum 

city of Boston, for its acceptance or rejection, 
nets relating to rapid transit. And the results 
of the ballots so taken show that the voters 
have acted intelligently, and with a full under- 
standing of the issues involved, * * * j 
see no good reason why these precedents 
should not be followed in a bill so important 
and far-reaching in its consequences to the citi- 
zens of Boston as is the one before me. 

"The bill is objectionable for the further 
reason that it is in violation of the spirit of 
the statutes designed to prevent stock-water- 
ing, laws whose wisdom have been so far con- 
firmed by experience that all attempts to mod- 
ify or repeal them have failed. The essence of 
stock-watering is, I take it to be, the issuance 
of stock not based upon actual property of the 
corporation. This bill provides that the money 
to be paid to the city of Boston may be pro- 
vided for by issuing stock ; but no provision is 
made for the redemption or cancellation of the 
stock at the end of the term. The money so 
paid is, in fact, expended, not for permanent 
improvements, but for rentals, and does not 
increase the value of the plant of the company. 
At the end of forty years the stock is free, and 
will be held by the company without property 
to show for it. 

"No one can foresee w^hat advance may be 
made in the methods and cost of transporta- 



The Referendum 105 

tion, in the volume of travel, or in the facili- 
ties that may be required for its accommoda- 
tion in the next forty years. The history of 
passenger transportation during the last forty 
years, and the wonderful advance that has been 
made, not only in the amount of travel, but 
in the facilities afforded to passengers, is suf- 
ficient evidence of our inability to predict the 
future. This bill, however, while it does not 
restrict the company, ties the hands of the 
community. It will prevent the public from tak- 
ing advantage of any such improvements in 
transportation facilities on the proposed route, 
excepting those that may be deemed by the 
company advantageous to it. A consideration 
of the disastrous results which would have fol- 
lowed if exclusive rights had been granted to 
a street railway company forty years ago to 
continue until the present time, illustrates the 
limitations which this bill would impose upon 
the public, and the unwisdom of its enactment. 
"But there is a still more serious objection 
to the bill. It involves a surrender of public 
rights for an unusual term of years, and un- 
der unusual conditions. No street railway, 
with the exception of certain privileges hereto- 
fore assured to the West End Street Railway 
Company and the Boston Elevated Railway 
Company for special reasons, has other than a 
revocable franchise in a public way. 



io6 The Referendum 

''But this bill will, if it becomes a law, give 
to a private corporation a valuable monopoly 
in a great public thoroughfare and will perpet- 
uate that monopoly for forty years. It not 
only binds this generation; it ties the hands 
of the generation to come. The surrender of 
rights which belong to the public, even for a 
brief term of years, should be permitted only 
after the most careful consideration, and for 
controlling reasons of public policy; but no 
exigency has been shown to exist to justify 
the taking away of such rights from a genera- 
tion yet unborn. 

"No reason affecting the public welfare re- 
quires the adoption of this extraordinary prop- 
osition. The rapid transit of passengers by 
means of a subway is no longer an experiment. 
There can be no reasonable doubt that if such 
a structure be built and paid for by the city it 
can be leased to a transportation company for 
a sum amply sufficient to take care of the inter- 
est on the money borrowed therefor, and to 
provide a sinking fund for its ultimate redemp- 
tion. 

"All the special rights and privileges enjoyed 
by the Boston Elevated Railway Company 
will have expired in the year 1922. It has no 
moral or equitable claim to a continuance of 
those privileges, or of any exclusive privileges 
whatever. There is no good reason why the 



The Referendum 107 

public should not at that time come into com- 
plete possession of its own, to the end that fur- 
ther franchises may then be granted in view of 
improvements in the methods of rapid transit 
which may then have been made, with the sole 
object of securing, in the highest degree and at 
the lowest cost, convenience of the people of 
that day. But this hill, if approved, would go 
far toward assuring a continuance of the com- 
mand of the situation for a period of twenty 
years or more. Although its rights in the ex- 
isting subway will have ended, it is not dHHcult 
to foresee that a company in exclusive posses- 
sion for a long term of years of the most im- 
portant avenue of travel, will he in a position 
to control the situation and to prevent other 
transportation companies from competing upon 
equal terms. No such opportunity for control 
of the situation at that time should be permit- 
ted. 

''I am unable to give my assent to a bill 
which thus restricts the rights of the public, 
while, on the other hand, it insures valuable 
exclusive privileges to the company in question 
for so long a period ; and that, too, without any 
public exigency requiring the passage of so 
extraordinary a measure." 

The coincident arguments of the Governor 
of Massachusetts upon a precisely similar is- 
sue, with those contained in the recent mes- 



io8 The Referendum 

sage of the Mayor to the city council of Chi- 
cago, is most significant. But, what is more 
encouraging is the total absence of even the 
shadow of partisan consideration, since the 
Governor is a Republican in national politics, 
while the Mayor is a Democrat. Thus, with 
the former Democratic Governor of Illinois 
and the present Republican Speaker of the Illi- 
nois House of Representatives, these men form 
the pioneer quartet in the present period of 
political reawakenings. 

In Illinois, the constitution requires the sub- 
mission to a popular vote of numerous sub- 
jects. The so-called "General Incorporation 
Act,'' for the incorporation of cities and vil- 
lages, adopted in 1872, specifically provides: 

"That, upon the petition of one-eighth of the 
legal voters of such municipality, the question 
as to whether they shall become incorporated 
under that act, must be submitted to a popular 
vote." 

It also further provides that, upon the peti- 
tion of one-eighth of the qualified voters, the 
question of minority representation in the city 
council shall be similarly submitted. The act, 
also, provides that after the adoption of the 
yearly appropriation bill by the city council, 
no further appropriation shall be made, unless 
the proposition to make such additional appro- 
priation has been first sanctioned by a majority 



The Referendum 109 

of the voters, and, no annexation of one incor- 
porated city or town to another has binding 
force, until submitted to the voters of such city, 
village or town. In May, 1901, the State Leg- 
islature adopted a law which, to the political 
novice, has the appearance of the right to em- 
ploy the Initiative. It reads as follows : 

"An act for the expression of opinion by 
electors on questions of public policy," in 
which it is provided that, ''On a written peti- 
tion signed by twenty-five per cent of the reg- 
istered voters of any city, it shall be the duty 
of the proper election officers, in each case, to 
submit any question of public policy so peti- 
tioned for to the electors," etc., etc. 

Could representative presumption be more 
strikingly illustrated ? Let us suppose the pop- 
ular vote upon any question was practically^ 
unanimous. What v/ould prevent the Legisla- 
ture from casting the returns of the election 
officers into the waste-basket? 'Tis true, the 
right of the people to instruct their representa- 
tives, contained in the State constitutions of 
1 8 18 and 1848, has been eliminated by the 
framers of the present constitution, substitut- 
ing for instruct, 'The people have the right to 
make known their opinions to their representa- 
tives"; yet, the preposterous idea, on the part 
of the agents of the people, to prescribe a 
method, and place the enormous number of pe- 



no The Referendum 

titioners at twenty-five per cent in cities, in- 
order to exercise that right, shows, conclu- 
sively, these representatives have lost all con- 
sciousness of the true relationship existing be- 
tween themselves and their sovereign masters. 

As against State legislative buncombe, the 
chief city of Illinois, with its half million vot- 
ers, and a conscientious Mayor in the lead, 
have entered the field to battle for the Refer- 
endum and municipal ownership of public util- 
ities. 

Most of Chicago's traction franchises ex- 
pire in 1903, and the easiest way to obtain ex- 
tensions is the absorbing question of the mo- 
ment to the companies. Having obtained a 
twenty-years' lease eighteen years ago, through 
liberal promises, which, as the rarest patron 
can bear witness, have never been kept, the 
simplest and cheapest method would seem to 
be a repetition of the old tactics. 

Some people, no doubt with the best inten- 
tions, becoming tired of the delays and inde- 
cent means of transportation furnished, have 
allowed themselves to be goaded into submis- 
sion to the shrewdly conceived plan "for im- 
mediate settlement" of the traction question. 

In this dangerous emergency the Mayor of 
the city, Carter Harrison, who seems to have 
reached the mathematical solution that, all the 
people of a community — the prominent citizen 



The Referendum iii 

included — have more at stake, have better 
judgment, and more perspicacity, than a frac- 
tion, has fired a special message at the ward 
representatives, bristling with facts, logical de- 
ductions, and evidencing the staunchest deter- 
mination to stand by his guns, which well 
aimed shot has alarmed the schemers, and 
brought the unreflecting boomers "for immedi- 
ate settlement" to their better second thought. 

This unanswerable document should be in 
the hands of every voter in the land as an ele- 
mentary lesson in home rule. Since his remarks 
on the subject of my text are so concise and 
pertinent, I cannot refrain from quoting his 
closing sentences upon the Referendum : 

"This brings me to the last essential, as I 
take it, in settling the traction question. This 
is the requirement that before an ordinance 
shall become operative its terms must first be 
submitted to a popular vote and receive the 
sanction and indorsement of the people. 

"Personally, I believe in the Referendum 
because through its instrumentality corruption 
and the motives for corruption will largely be 
minimized, if not eradicated from our munici- 
pal governments. 

"When popular indorsement for a measure 
is necessary to make it operative, the wishes 
of the people will naturally be consulted more 
and more ; as the terms must be satisfactory to 



112 The Referendum 

the people to secure their indorsement, there 
will be less for the corrupt official to give and 
less for the corrupting corporation to buy. 

*The influences public service corporations 
exerted upon officials of the past are too well 
known to demand any amplification. Any- 
thing tending to uproot this evil from the body 
politic is deserving of popular support. 

''It cannot be denied that a reasonable Refer- 
endum law would do more to encourage fair 
dealing on the part of the corporations, to re- 
move temptations from officials, and insure 
good legislation for the people than almost 
any agency that can be suggested. 

''The passage of an ordinance by its very 
terms inoperative until its provisions shall have 
been submitted to a direct vote of the people, 
the real grantors of its privileges, and shall 
have received the unmistakable stamp of their 
active sanction and approval will give your 
honorable body the satisfactory assurance of 
your actions meeting with the approval of the 
people you have been chosen to represent. 
Moreover, such a provision will eliminate the 
danger of your being led into hasty action by 
real or fancied misrepresentations of the peo- 
ple's true wishes and demands. 

"The terms of an ordinance of this char- 
acter could be submitted to a popular vote in 
the general election of November of this yean 



The Referendum 113 

If the action taken be such as to commend it- 
self to popular judgment this whole vexatious 
question would then be settled upon lines satis- 
factory to all concerned at a very early date." 

In this approaching contest, the principal 
question involved is not so much the feasibility 
or practicability of either course, as the right 
of the people to finally decide. Fortunately for 
the city of Chicago, the city council is com- 
posed of a body of men enjoying, in a high 
degree, the confidence of the public, and there 
is no reason to suppose, after mature study and 
deliberation, they will refuse to concede to the 
people their inalienable rights in the premises. 

And why not? What is this request that 
the people of cities and villages be permitted 
to enjoy the use of the Referendum? It is 
nothing new, nothing startling or perplexing. 
It is merely giving them an opportunity to ex- 
ercise a prior and indefeasible right in express- 
ing their consent, or dissent, to legislation af- 
fecting their interests and welfare ; to exercise 
this right through an intelligible method, al- 
ready in force in most of the States, not in a 
few specified instances, at the pleasure of their 
representatives, as a concession, but, as a right, 
whenever, in the good judgment of a worthy 
number of the citizens, an improvement is 
sought, or an evil to be abolished. 

Nor is there any foreignism in the proposi- 



114 The Referendum 

tion, but simply a step forward in the peaceful 
development of the Plymouth Rock theory of 
home-rule — a movement in perfect harmony 
v^ith the spirit of America's free institutions. 

Moreover, the demand to permit the people 
of municipalities, large or small, to assume 
the rights enjoyed by citizens inhabiting the 
rural districts, is not made with any intention 
of changing our system of laws, or to intro- 
duce a political novelty; nor is it proposed to 
alter existing forms, or, that the people intend 
to take charge of the duties assigned by the 
constitution to their representatives. 

What is asked, however, is that a check 
against vicious and extravagant legislation be 
placed in the hands of the people, in order that 
the principle of home-rule may receive a 
broader and more general application, through 
some definite legal enactment. 

It has been very pointedly said, *'There is 
nothing in this demand for the Referendum, 
in the nature of a concession; the question of 
right is not involved, for that is inherent and 
inalienable, and the withholding of this right 
on the part of the representatives — ^their serv- 
ants — is therefore indefensible, upon moral, 
religious, or any other ground." 

Such are evidently the views of the Speaker 
of the Illinois House of Representatives. In 
a statement to the Chicago 'American he says : 



The Referendum 115 

"I am a countryman. We countrymen have 
had so much trouble over local Chicago matters 
that we are not very forward in saying any- 
thing concerning them. 

"I will say, however, that I am very much 
in favor of home-rule. I believe it to be right. 
The State Legislature cannot levy taxes on 
the inhabitants or property in a city for corpo- 
rate purposes. The State Legislature cannot 
grant to a street railroad company the right 
to occupy a street without the consent of the 
local authorities. These are forbidden by our 
constitution. 

*'Why, then, should a city's park system be 
administered by the State? Why, as is done 
in some States, should city buildings be or- 
dered by the Legislature? Why should the 
municipal problems of water, gas, street light- 
ing, street improvements and local transporta- 
tion and city government be in any way in 
the domain of the State Legislature? Why 
should it constantly invade the problems of 
municipal government? 

'These questions seem practicably unanswer- 
able. There are good reasons that can be ad- 
vanced against the continuance of the present 
system. Indeed, every argument for them is 
an argument against them. 

"Why cannot Chicago pass on the question 
of what she wants in the line of enlarging or 
diminishing her municipal functions? 



ii6 The Referendum 

"You find, with regard to city matters, a cer- 
tain 'tendency' among all the country members 
of the Legislature. Let me explain. It has 
been my observation that, on every question 
that is local to Chicago, the country member 
wants to vote as the majority of the Chicago 
representation acts. I have done that myself. 
I did it on the Allen bill. Seventy per cent of 
the members from Cook County voted for the 
Allen bill. 

"Now, municipal ownership and operation 
have to come by a majority of the voters. No 
City Council, even if authorized, would feel 
like taking such a step of its own motion. 
There would undoubtedly be some referendum. 

"Here, then, is the practical end of this sub- 
ject, and the common sense thing to do. 

"There is no use to get legislation and then 
have it discredited or rejected at the polls, is 
there ? 

"Let us take what is called the public pol- 
icy law. Under this law provision is made for 
taking the opinion of the voters on any ques- 
tion of public policy. Submit it to the people. 
Take the sense of the people on the subject. 

"Then, w4th that, let them come to Spring* 
field, and I am absolutely certain that there are 
999 chances out of i,ooo that the country leg- 
islator, as well as the city legislator, will follow 
the expression of Chicago's public opinion." 



The Referendum 117 

The Speaker did not state that the seventy- 
iive per cent of the members from Cook County 
who voted for the notorious Allen bill did not 
represent the will of the people, but, merely, 
the interests of the political ^'bosses'' by whose 
dictation they were nominated. 

This chapter cannot be more fittingly closed 
than by giving the readers the following splen- 
did illustration, in miniature, of the political 
reawakenings of a people living in one of the 
villages in the vicinity of Chicago, as described 
ty Mr. Shibley, of Washington, D. C. This 
example of civic self-assertion by a small com- 
munity might very profitably be imitated by 
the two million metropolis a few miles south 
of it: 

^'Sixteen miles north of Chicago, on the 
Northwestern Railway, is Winnetka, 111., a vil- 
lage of about three thousand people. Most of 
the voters are business men of Chicago, intel- 
ligent and progressive, and there was included 
in their number Mr. Henry D. Lloyd. Some 
years ago the Village Board of Trustees was 
about to grant to a private corporation a fifty- 
year franchise for supplying gas. At that time 
the citizens were holding each month a public 
meeting for the discussion of public questions 
— 'Town Meetings' is the name they apply to 
these gatherings. While the pending fifty-year 
franchise was being considered by the Elected 



ii8 The Referendum 

Rulers — the few men who composed the board 
of trustees — the time came round for the 
'town meeting/ and, very naturally, the ques- 
tion which came up for discussion was the pro- 
posed franchise for gas. It clearly appeared 
that the voters did not legally possess the 
power to veto the contracts negotiated by their 
agents — the village trustees. The unbusiness^ 
like character of the situation appealed so for- 
cibly to the citizens who were present that a 
resolution was framed asking that the trustees 
of the village submit the proposed contract to 
their principals, the voters. So skillfully was 
the resolution framed that the members of the 
village board, leading citizens and neighbors 
of their fellows, felt compelled to refer the 
proposed franchise to popular vote. Previous 
to this they had made up their minds to sell 
the franchise. Their self-interest had been ap- 
pealed to by the shrewd men who were secur- 
ing for themselves the special privilege. But 
the popular vote was a crushing defeat. There 
were only 4 votes in favor of the franchise, 
with 180 votes against it. It is supposed that 
part of these four votes were by the aldermen 
who had openly committed themselves to the 
measure. This settled the gas franchise. 

"But that was not all. The voters, by this 
experience, became conscious of their power. 
They became conscious of the fact that they 



The Referendum 119 

could defeat each bad contract for a franchise 
if they could get a popular vote on it — for the 
voter's self-interest would move him to protect 
himself. Accordingly, when the time came 
around for making nominations for member- 
ship in the Village Board of Trustees, a voter 
proposed that whoever should be nominated 
should agree that, if elected, he would vote to 
submit to the people every proposed franchise 
or other important measure, and that the Board 
should abide by the popular will 

"This proposal was seconded. A few men 
objected to placing the decision in the hands 
of the voters, but this objection was quickly 
overcome in the caucus, and by an overwhelm- 
ing majority. The nominees for the Board of 
Trustees and for the Presidency of the Board 
agreed, as requested, and they lived up to their 
agreements. Since then the voters at each cau- 
cus for making nominations for village officers 
have brought forward a similar resolution and 
it has been adopted, and the men elected have 
kept their agreements." 

This interesting account of the political ac- 
tivity of the little republic induced me to ad- 
dress a distinguished member of the Chicago 
bar, but a resident of Winnetka, for further 
particulars. I received the following answer in 
return : 
*' General Hermann Lieb, 

''My Dear Sir: In your letter of the 4th 



I20 The Referendum 

inquiring about the operation of the Refer- 
endum at Winnetka, I suppose you refer to 
what we call the 'Town Meeting/ This is 
a perfectly informal gathering called to- 
gether from time to time by a com- 
mittee chosen annually. There is no member- 
ship and no dues. All citizens of Winnetka are 
invited to be present at the meetings and par- 
ticipate in the deliberations. The Town Meet- 
ing originated, as I understand, in a kind of 
open literary society which existed in the ear- 
lier and simpler days of the village. As the 
population increased, the organization gradu- 
ally turned its attention more and more to 
questions of municipal policy or public utility. 
On some occasions when the Village Council 
has desired an expression of public sentiment 
on some pending measure, a Town Meeting has 
been called to consider the question at issue; 
in other cases the subject for discussion is de- 
termined by the officers and executive commit- 
tee of their own initiative. 

"While the sentiments developed or resolu- 
tions adopted at these meetings have no legal 
effect, the Village Council has usually mani- 
fested a disposition to be guided by public 
opinion, and the Town Meeting has proved 
the most available means for the expression of 
that opinion. 

"I understand you wished to know whether, 
under the system of government which prevails 



The Referendum 121 

at Winnetka, partisanship is eliminated. The 
situation at Winnetka is such that very little 
is heard of partisan politics, and the candidates 
for the Village Council are nominated and 
elected without any reference to their political 
affiliations. This may be due, in some meas- 
ure, to the fact that one of the political parties 
could poll a large majority, but it is probably 
due, almost entirely, to the absence of spoils. 
I have never heard of any issue being raised 
in Winnetka about the politics of any candidate 
at the municipal election. Yours respectfully, 

"William W. Case," 



Chapter XIII. 

EVIDENCES OF CIVIC MATURITY OF THE PEOPLE 
OF CITIES. 

By way of illustrations, it is now proposed to 
show that the people of cities and villages are 
not only wise enough but sufficiently well in- 
formed to take care of their own local affairs ; 
that, in emergencies, they have always proven 
to be superior to their representatives, both in 
intelligence and public spirit. The following 
instance, in confirmation, was furnished by the 
people of Chicago over thirty years ago,, 
through a movement for the betterment of po- 
litical conditions, created by their unfaithful 
representatives. Their children, today, are in 
the enjoyment of the benefits won in that mem- 
orable contest. 

For years the people of Chicago had been 
swindled by some of the people enjoying special 
privileges under the State constitution of 1848, 
which constitution permitted the General As- 
sembly to deal out favors to such as were will- 
ing to pay for them. Private parties and cor- 
porations were constantly besieging the State 
House, at Springfield, during the sixties, with 
bills for special charters and many other kinds 

122 



The Referendum 123 

of special privileges, generally originating in 
and applicable to Chicago. In that city the 
fees of public officers, through the same 
method, had been gradually increased, until 
the incumbents were able to realize comfortable 
fortunes during a single term of office. These 
official steals and the notorious abuse of legis- 
lative power created among all classes a de- 
mand for a radical change. The change could 
not be effected, however, except through a re- 
vision of the old State constitution, or the en- 
actment of a new one. The press of Chicago, 
with two exceptions, without regard to politi- 
cal predilections, sided with the people. This 
democratic sentiment, taking practical form 
among the citizens of the different wards, cul- 
minated in a ''People's Party." ''No more 
special legislation ! No fees, but fixed salaries 
for public officers!" were the watchwords of 
this civic uprising. As a result, an independent 
ticket placed in the field in 1869 was elected 
by a large majority. The most significant fea- 
ture of this civic uprising was the fact that it 
originated in the so-called alien wards, a Ger- 
man-American paper taking the lead. 

The State constitution of 1870, born of that 
popular movement, prohibits the enactment by 
the Legislature of private bills in seventy-five 
specified cases; as, for instance, the "Granting 
to any corporation, association or individual 



124 The Referendum 

any special or exclusive privilege, immunity, or 
franchise whatever." 'The granting to any 
corporation, association or individual the right 
to lay down railroad tracks, or amending exist- 
ing charters for such purpose/' 'The creating, 
increasing or decreasing fees, percentage or al- 
lowances of public officers during the term for 
which said officers are elected or appointed/' 

But of all the beneficent features of the new 
constitution that which prohibits the State Leg- 
islature from "Incorporating cities, towns or 
villages, amending, or changing the charter of 
any city or village," stands at the head of the 
list, since, by implication, all matters of local 
interest only are placed in the hands of the 
people of these municipalities and their self- 
constituted authorities. 

That political upheaval, by which the repre- 
sentatives were shorn of the privilege to dis- 
pose of the people's property in cities, at their 
sweet will — generally out of sheer stupidity or, 
to the highest bidder for cash, further demon- 
strated the fact that the people of cities are not 
only wiser and more public spirited than their 
representatives, but, in many other respects, 
more trustworthy; but, what has been most 
glaringly dem.onstrated, is the fact that, it is 
the height of folly for any people to entrust 
representatives, their mere agents, with un- 
checked and uncontrolled power. 



The Referendum 125 

But if this evidence of wise discrimination 
furnished by the people of the city of Chicago 
thirty-one years ago, has passed from the mem- 
ory of the present generation, a further proof 
to the same effect was furnished by the people 
of Chicago five years ago, when they were 
called upon to decide, at the ballot box, the 
fate of the two most important laws, the Civil 
Service Act and the so-called Torrens Law. 

After the great fire, when almost all the real 
estate records of titles and transfers stored in 
the county building were destroyed, the people 
of Chicago were subjected to the most outra- 
geous extortions by the abstract companies who 
had secured the private records kept by some 
of the real estate brokers. There were no lim- 
its to the charges for an abstract ; one hundred 
to two hundred dollars for small holdings was 
not among the rarities. Finally some public 
spirited citizens of the Real Estate Board be- 
gan to interest themselves in a system of land 
titles, which, under the name of Torrens, had 
been in operation in a number of States in 
Germany, for the last hundred years, and in 
the city of Hamburg as remotely as six hun- 
dred years. These citizens formulated the sys- 
tem into law in 1891, transmitting it \o the 
governor, who appointed a commission to in- 
vestigate the subject. This law was submitted 
to the State Legislature by the commissioners. 



126 The Referendum 

with their approval, and was adopted by the 
Senate, but failed to pass in the lower house. 

Was it downright stupidity on the part of 
the lawmakers, who were supposed to have 
reached civic maturity, or had they been "seen" 
by the abstract firms that they thus disregarded 
their duties ? The fact is, this beneficent meas- 
ure was shelved, and the robberies of the ab- 
stract firms went merrily on, until at the next 
following session of the Legislature— two years 
later — the bill was again submitted; this time 
with success, and with the proviso that. The 
law be submitted to a popular vote of the coun- 
ties for adoption or rejection — in other words, 
a resort to the Referendum. 

This law, which an ignorant or venal House 
of Representatives refused to pass, was ap- 
proved by the discriminating electorate of the 
city of Chicago, with the enormous majority of 
77,838 votes. One of the commissioners, after 
demonstrating the benefits of the Torrens sys- 
tem, says: 

"It has secured the chief advantages of the 
old system of recording the deeds, of which 
notice is the most important principle, and has 
operated so as to almost entirely dispense with 
investigations of prior title." 

This law was voted down by a House of 
Representatives, but sustained by a vote of the 
people. Who will say that the former are 
"ripe" and the latter not? 



The Referendum 127 

The citizens of Chicago have furnished an- 
other evidence of their political sagacity by- 
sustaining the Civil Service law with a ma- 
jority of 50,000. If that law is defective, it 
is the fault of the framers. The people intui- 
tively favored the law because they believed in 
the principle. That vote, examined by wards, 
further shows the groundlessness of the charge 
against the foreign born, that they are the 
cause of misgovernment of large cities, and 
proves, conclusively, that they vote upon com- 
plicated matters as intelligently and as dis- 
criminatingly as the native born. Every ward 
of the North Division, for instance, gave large 
majorities in its favor; the old Twenty-sixth, 
almost exclusively inhabited by German- Amer- 
icans, stands at the head of the list, with a 
3,000 majority. 

On the day after this popular triumph over 
the combined efforts of interested parties, the 
Chicago Tribune, in an editorial, gave to the 
Chicago electorate the following flattering cer- 
tificate of civic maturity: "One of the most 
gratifying results of yesterday's election in 
Chicago is the adoption of the Civil Service 
law by 45,000 majority [50,000 is the official 
return], which under the circumstances may be 
considered as an emphatic expression of the 
popular will. It had a strong and well organ- 
ized opposition. The ringsters, boodlers and 



128 The Referendum 

machine men were combined against it, as its 
passage meant the loss of their professional oc- 
cupation. They will now have something else 
to do for a living." The Tribune's prognosti- 
cations have not been realized, and will not be 
until the Referendum has been made a mandate 
to legislators, State and municipal, for any law 
or ordinance demanded by a certain percentage 
of the electorate. Then, and not till then, will 
the political bosses and their following have ta 
look out for something else to dc for a living. 



Chapter XIV. 

HISTORIC SKETCH OF THE INITIATIVE AND REF- 
ERENDUM IN SWITZERLAND. 

"Democracy in Switzerland is not merely a 
national or cantonal matter, but has its root 
far down in the local bodies, and this gives to 
it a stability and conservatism which it lacks 
in most other continental nations." — Prof. 
Lowell. 

Since the fact has been historically estab- 
lished, that the free institutions of the United 
States and Switzerland are of the same ancient 
origin, and, since the small Alpine Republic is 
often pointed to as a worthy model for 
imitation by the greatest Republic, a brief sur- 
vey of the political progress of the former is 
essential to a thorough understanding of the 
subject in hand. 

By stating that the free institutions of this 
country and Switzerland are of the same an- 
cient origin, the idea is not to be conveyed that, 
originally, free institutions were confined to 
the Teutonic race. Freedom must necessarily 
have been the original condition of mankind. 
The doctrine of the brotherhood of man ante- 
dates the sermon on the mount. 

129 



130 The Referendum 

'This whole world/' declared Cicero, ''is to 
be regarded as the common city of God and 
men. Men were born for the sake of men, 
that each should assist the others. Nature or- 
dains that a man should wish the good of every 
man, whoever he may be, for the very reason 
that he is a man. To reduce man to the duties 
of his own city and to disengage him from the 
duties to the members of other cities, is to 
break the universal society of the human race. 
Nature has inclined us to love men, and this is 
the foundation of the law.'' 

"The whole universe," said Seneca, "which 
you see around you, comprising all things, both 
divine and human, is one. We are members 
of one great body. Nature has made us rela- 
tives, when it begat us from the same mate- 
rials and for the same destinies. She planted 
in us a mutual love, and fitted us for a social 
life. What is a Roman knight, or freedman, 
or slave ? These are but names springing from 
ambition or from injury. I know that my 
country is the world, and my guardians are 
the gods." 

The thing, however, that is original and 
characteristic in the Teutonic race, is its keen 
perception of the truth of Seneca's maxim, that 
knights, freedmten or slaves, are but names 
springing from ambition or from injury. The 
unconquerable tenacity with which this race 



The Referendum 131 

successfully struggled through ages, against 
ambition and human greed, to keep their nat- 
ural rights from being obliterated, as those 
of all other races have been, constitutes their 
most salient national trait. 

The first documentary evidence of free in- 
stitutions in Switzerland is the official report 
of the proceedings of a popular assembly, called 
Landsgemeinde, in the Canton Schwytz, bear- 
ing the date of 1291. From the declarations 
therein contained it would appear that the Aus- 
trian nobility and the priesthood had for some 
time been encroaching upon their ancient rights 
and liberties. 

"If the monasteries,'' it says, "refuse to bear 
their share of taxation they shall be excluded 
from the enjoyment of our land, water, wood 
and grazing. Or, if a foreigner owns any 
landed property it shall be taxed. Should the 
tenant be oppressed by the owner of it, or dis- 
possess him for another, no one shall receive 
it, or in any way interfere with the tenant, un- 
der fine of five pounds damage and return of 
the property to the tenant. Those unwilling 
to pay their fine shall not be sheltered nor 
given to eat or to drink, for those who were 
to do this will have to pay the fine.'' 

"For a long time," says Theodore Curtis, 
in his work on Swiss Democracy, "the confed- 
erates defended and saved the Germanic liber- 



132 The Referendum 

ties with the weapon of legal proof and, then, 
with their strong arms. They extended the 
circle of their Landsgemeinde, these meetings 
of a sovereign people where the laws were 
made and all important state matters discussed 
and decided, while on the other hand they sub- 
jected the nobility and the priesthood to popu- 
lar authority." 

It is remarkable that this political status of 
the Allemany branch of the Teutons, to whose 
energy modern Switzerland owes the preserva- 
tion of the Germanic popular rights, was both 
social and liberal. The movement of securing^ 
and extending these popular rights, and that 
of the emancipation from the landed aristocracy 
which threatened the ownership of the peasan- 
try, went hand in hand ; and it is from this cir- 
cumstance that the origin of the ancient tradi- 
tions of a great confederacy, which were kept 
alive in Southern Germany for many centuries, 
can readily be traced. 

The popular conscience of the Germans 
dwelling north of the Rhine watched with 
deep solicitude the progress and success of 
the saving deeds of the AUemanys, who were 
struggling to preserve the treasure of Teutonic 
liberty in the valleys of the headwaters of 
their German stream. 

"A free German confederacy shall become a 
fact when the red cow shall bellow under a fir 



The Referendum 133 

tree of the Black Forest," is one of the tra- 
ditional sayings among the people of Southern 
Germany, as is also the prophecy, "that Nurem- 
berg would once be the center of that confeder- 
acy." But these beautiful dreams of a long 
gone past were not to be realized. 

Instead of bringing liberty to their German 
kinsfolk north of the Rhine, some of the un- 
natural sons of the Swiss confederacy, grown 
rich and insolent through superior advantages, 
joined hands with their oppressors and sold for 
pensions and decorations the golden oppor- 
tunity of increasing the Swiss territory to 
three times its present size, and of spreading 
its free institutions over millions for ages to 
come. Not satisfied with this act of base be- 
trayal, these same renegades against popular 
institutions, styling themselves patricians, by 
intrigue, stealth and brutal force, brought by 
slow degrees three-fourths of the population, 
or almost all dwellers of the country districts, 
to the level of the serfs. 

The three centuries between the heroic pe- 
riod of Swiss history and the partial restora- 
tion of the people's rights, toward the close of 
the Eighteenth Century, are filled with records 
of the most infamous usurpations of power, of 
insatiable greed and brutal cruelty on the part 
of a handful of parvenues, who, living in forti- 
fied cities and surrounded by mercenaries, op- 



134 The Referendum 

pressed and despoiled the country people with 
absolute impunity. 

The severity with which the few men who 
dared to raise their voices against these indig- 
nities were persecuted, had rendered all ef- 
forts toward an improvement of their condition 
nugatory, and it was not until the ideas of the 
French Revolution of 1789 had begun to per- 
meate the minds of the people of Continental 
Europe, that the political regeneration of 
Switzerland could safely be taken in hand by 
a small number of her courageous patriots. 

With Napoleon's mediation act, restoring to 
the Swiss cantons, or states, their ancient local 
self-government, insuring the integrity of the 
confederation, and destroying the rule of the 
oligarchies, Switzerland entered upon her new 
era of constitutional government. At the 
downfall of Napoleon, however, the reaction- 
ary policy pursued by the Holy Alliance 
brought the aristocracies of cities again to the 
front. 

Cherbulitz, in his Democracie en Suisse, 
says: ''Napoleon's act of mediation had cre- 
ated an aristocracy of ability; the Restoration 
re-established the aristocracy of birth and the 
predominance of certain localities. The control 
exercised by the nation over its government 
was not active enough to be efficient. No ma- 
chinery existed by which the majority of the 



The Referendum 135 

Representatives could be influenced by the 
wishes of the people and in the interest of the 
country, as a whole. All the positions of 
honor in the state were monopolized by certain 
families. An opposition party soon arose, how- 
ever, whose aim was to put an end to the po- 
litical disability created by the reactionary con- 
stitution of 181 5 — a movement which received 
a powerful impetus from the Revolution in 
Paris in 1830. This sudden outbreak of popu- 
lar wrath against the Bourbon dynasty aroused 
the Swiss to a state of indescribable excitement. 
The whole country was ablaze with patriotic 
fervor. Mass-meetings were held everywhere 
at which the orators dwelt upon the wrongs 
endured by the patient people, and demands 
were presented to those in authority for re- 
dress. Under the strong pressure of public 
opinion the Federal Diet was compelled to 
meet in December, 1830, in extraordinary ses- 
sion and to adopt the following decree : 

" The Federal Diet unanimously approves of 
the principle that each canton in the Confed- 
eration, by virtue of its sovereignty, has the 
right to make whatever amendment to its con- 
stitution it may judge necessary, provided these 
amendments be not contrary to the Federal 
agreement. The Diet, therefore, will not in- 
terfere in such constitutional reforms as have 
already been or are about to be effected.' '' 



136 The Referendum 

In pursuance of this advanced step, twenty 
revisions of cantonal constitutions took place, 
every one of which — the Canton of Frieburg 
excepted — were submitted to a vote of the 
people. With the exception of a few of the 
small cantons, which preferred to retain their 
ancient system of Landsgemeinde, or Teutonic 
Folk-mote, the representative system was gen- 
erally adopted; the sovereignty of the people 
was proclaimed, universal suffrage introduced 
and liberty of the press guaranteed. 



Chapter XV. 

THE REFERENDUM IN THE CANTONS. 

This system answered for a time; but this 
indirect participation in the common affairs 
of the canton, while an improvement, did not 
satisfy public sentiment, which the memories 
of a glorious past had rekindled. On every 
side soon loud demands were heard for direct 
participation by the people in legislation, more 
particularly and specifically from the Canton 
of St. Gall, where Felix Diog, one of the mem- 
bers of the Constitutional Assembly, gave vent 
to the sentiment by declaring : "The people are 
sovereign! the people, and the people only, 
should exercise supreme power; their will 
should be law; sovereignty cannot be dele- 
gated ; a sovereign who acts only through dep- 
uties may be said to have abdicated. The peo- 
ple have been declared of age. It is, therefore, 
out of the question that the great Council 
•(House of Representatives) should be con- 
stituted their guardian." 

Mr. Diog's declaration elicited universal ap- 
proval among the people, but the majority of 

137 



138 The Referendum 

his colleagues of the Convention were not 
"ripe" for this advanced step and the proposi- 
tion to intrust the people with the important 
and far-reaching power of the Initiative was 
defeated by a vote of 75 against 66 — a major- 
ity of nine votes. Nevertheless, a forward 
step was obtained by a compromise which gave 
the people the veto upon legislation. 

Many of the cantons followed the example 
of St. Gall. The spirit of reform was abroad^ 
and in 1845 ^he inhabitants of the canton De- 
Vaud took the lead, taking a much more ad- 
vanced position. Their new constitution pro- 
vided that, if eight thousand citizens demanded 
a vote of the people for *the enactment of any 
new law, or the repeal of an old one,' the 
House of Representatives should obey such 
demand. 

While the constitutions of a large majority 
of the cantons had thus experienced material 
alterations the reactionary federal compact of 
181 5 still remained in force. Its features were 
not in harmony with the organic laws of the 
different cantons and a change in the federal 
compact, or rather the formation of a con- 
stitution for the Swiss Confederation was 
strongly agitated. The French Revolution of 
1848, occurring about that time, greatly 
assisted this movement, which resulted in a 
constitutional convention being called in the 
'course of the same year. 



The Referendum 139 

The fundamental law therein formulated 
placed the legislative authority of the confeder- 
ation in a Federal Assembly consisting of two 
chambers, with other features almost a copy of 
the constitution of the United States, with the 
exception, however, that the executive authority 
was vested in a council of seven members 
chosen by the Federal Assembly in joint ses- 
sion. It also provided that the constitution 
may be amended at any time upon the demand 
of 50,000 electors. This provision was a long 
step in advance of that of Article V of the 
American Constitution, by which the people 
of the different States are practically barred 
from even suggesting, much less participating 
in such amending. The cumbersome methods 
and conditions placed in the way of making 
desired amendments are almost unsurmount- 
able barriers to any change in the fundamental 
law of our country. 

In addition to this forward movement by 
progressive men in Switzerland, a quiet but 
most effective process had been set in operation 
among the youth in the schools of the various 
cantons. The glorious achievements of their 
forefathers in their stubborn struggles for lib- 
erty were made the specific topics in the study 
of Swiss history, and, the fact that their an- 
cestry had lived in peace and happiness under 
their self-constituted government and self- 



140 The Referendum 

made laws, established a thousand years be- 
fore, kindled in their youthful breasts the high 
resolve never to rest until their ancient rights 
had been fully recovered. Thus, by united 
aims and actions, the agitation for popular par- 
ticipation in legislation proceeded slowly, but 
intellectually, all alone the line. 

It is the people of the canton of Zurich, how- 
ever, the great center of intellectual endeavor, 
to whom the honorable title of ''political pio- 
neers" is due. During the latter part of 1867 
a committee, composed of prominent citizens 
from different parts of the canton, was organ- 
ized charged v\^ith the energetic agitation for a 
revision of their cantonal constitution. On 
the 8th of December, of the same year, the 
committee issued an address to the people in 
which the good results gained by the constitu- 
tion of 1830, in removing the patrician privi- 
leges, and the adoption of the Representative 
system, were set forth and emphasized. 

''Nevertheless," says the address, "during 
these thirty-seven years the people of Zurich 
have become conscious of their rights and du- 
ties as citizens. With this awakening of civic 
self-consciousness, the inadequacy of our un- 
controlled system of representation has become 
glaringly manifest. In order to complete the 
recognized maxim, 'All for the people,' by 
adding 'All by the people,' it only remains to 
devise some new form through which popular 



The Referendum 141 

sovereignty may really be exercised. Our re- 
sponsible and irresponsible officials either have 
no sympathy with this intellectual process of 
civic evolution, or are afraid of the people's 
will directly expressed. At this very mo- 
ment," continues the address, "we behold the 
presiding officer of the assembly in the canton 
of Glarus bitterly denouncing the system of 
popular participation in legislation, while he 
extols the purely representative system, as the 
Alpha and Omega of statesman-like wisdom. 
But the people have advanced beyond their 
Representatives, and such retrogressive senti- 
ments as those from Glarus will only have the 
effect of accelerating the movement for the full 
restoration of the people's rights." 

The committee, thereupon, suggested the fol- 
lowing, as the chief points to be obtained by a 
constitutional revision : ''Reference of the laws 
to the people for adoption or rejection; the 
right of the people to propose or initiate laws." 

In order to ascertain the effect of this spirited 
agitation the committee invited their fellow 
citizens to meet on Sunday, the 15th of Sep- 
tember, 1867, in the four principal cities, for 
the purpose of recording their votes for or 
against a revision. The result of these meet- 
ings was a great surprise to the opponents of 
the Initiative and Referendum. It showed 
that twenty-seven thousand votes had been cast 



142 The Referendum 

in its favor. Such an imposing popular dem- 
onstration could not be ignored by the Legisla- 
tive Council of the canton. A general election 
was ordered, resulting in a vote of 50,689 for, 
and but 7,336 against revision. 

This vote made the call for a constitutional 
convention mandatory. The progressive party 
succeeded in electing a large majority of the 
delegates, and the following constitutional pro- 
visions were the results of their deliberations : 

"When five thousand legal voters, or a num- 
ber of town-meetings at which at least five 
thousand citizens have voted in favor of the en- 
actment of a certain law, such law must be sub- 
mitted to a vote of the people of the canton. 

"If an individual citizen, or the bearer of 
such proposed law from a town, requests to be 
heard, such request must be granted, provided 
it receives the support of twenty-five members 
of the assembly. 

"The co-operation of the legislative assembly 
in the preparation of legislative acts or resolu- 
tions to be submitted to a vote of the people is 
necessary. 

"All such acts must be published thirty days 
prior to an election, such elections to be held 
twice a year: in spring and fall. In urgent 
cases the assem.bly may order a special election ; 
but a law may not be put in force temporarily 
and before having been submitted to a popular 
vote. Votings to take place in the towns by 



The Referendum 143 

mere Yes or No. The absolute majority of all 
the votes cast in the canton is decisive/' 

The cantonal Assembly is authorized to leg- 
islate upon minor matters, such, for instance, 
as the expenditure for a definite purpose not 
exceeding $50,000. 

A writer of note says of the effect of these 
popular measures : ''The carrying out of these 
reforms had a most salutary effect upon the 
people of the canton of Zurich. The responsi- 
bility of legislation thus transferred from the 
representatives to the people themselves very 
soon created a feeling of civic self-importance 
in the individual citizen. He began to appre- 
ciate the situatron from the higher standpoint 
of sovereignty, from which, by active participa- 
tion in the discussion and disposition of public 
measures, he was able to demonstrate his right 
and ability to be free. On the other hand the 
representatives, who heretofore had acted inde- 
pendently of the people, because they had no 
means of ascertaining the people's wishes, or, 
perhaps being influenced by interested motives, 
did not care to know, were henceforth com- 
pelled to heed the popular demands, well as- 
sured that their acts in future would be 
reviewed by discerning constituents.'' 

From this time forward the canton of Zurich 
served all other cantons as a model for imita- 
tion, and most of these changed their constitu- 



144 The Referendum 

tions within the space of three years. But the 
sentiment for uniformity which had effected 
the great changes in the constitution of 1848 
forced the authorities of the Confederation into 
bringing the latter in harmony with the ad- 
vanced position taken by the cantons. 

''It became certain," says Professor Simon 
Deploige in his Referendvim in Switzerland, 
*'that the federal revision so ardently desired 
by the radicals would have to be undertaken in 
a democratic spirit and that any addition to the 
powers of the central government must be 
accompanied by an extension of the rights of 
the people. To transfer the right of legisla- 
tion on civil, criminal and commercial matters 
from the great councils of the cantons to the 
Federal Assembly (which had been strongly 
urged) without at the same time giving the 
Swiss electors an opportunity to pronounce 
upon these same subjects when embodied in 
federal laws, would have deprived the people 
in the democratic cantons of the fruit of their 
recent victories and have been a retrograde 
step. 

"The democrats, who were in reality strug- 
gling for the rights of the people, recognized 
this so clearly that they made centralization 
their watchword as the surest way of obtaining 
the referendum in federal matters.'' 

The question was agitated by the press and 



The Referendum 145 

in pamphlet pro and con. The discussions 
were highly instructive. The following few 
extracts of arguments, translated from Pro- 
fessor Deploige's work, are the most valuable 
contributions of this memorable controversy. 

Mr. Dubs, a lawyer of distinction and mem- 
ber of the Federal Assembly, published his 
views upon the subject in a pamphlet in which 
he took the position that : 

"We ought to try to reconcile the liberty of 
action necessary to the representatives with the 
rights that are inherent in the sovereign people. 
The people delegate power to their deputies, 
who are responsible for its proper use, and 
ought, therefore, to be accorded a certain lati- 
tude; but at the same time the people ought 
to possess some guarantee against the inde- 
pendence of their deputies. Without some such 
safeguard their sovereignty is imperiled and 
there is risk of its becoming a mere empty 
phrase.'' 

Mr. Gengel, editor of the Bund, one of the 
most influential journals in Switzerland, pub- 
lished in Berne, representing the views of the 
more advanced Democrats, said : 

''Under the system to which the name. Rep- 
resentative Democracy, has been given, the sov- 
ereignty of the people is a mere fiction; the 
people are, in fact, subordinate, and the power 
is in the hands of the Chambers. To say that 



146 The Referendum 

popular sovereignty and universal suffrage are 
one and the same thing is ridiculous. When- 
ever the elections are past the electors have no 
possible influence over the Chamber. They do 
not take part in the sittings ; they do not read 
the Parliamentary reports, even if they exist; 
and in the newspapers they only get mutilated 
and abbreviated accounts of what has taken 
place. In order that popular sovereignty should 
not be an empty phrase and democracy a lie, the 
people ought themselves to approve their laws, 
appoint the executive, and elect the judges.'' 

Mr. Bernt, another journalist, vigorously at- 
tacked the popular veto as insufficient : 

"The statesmen of 1830," he said, "invented 
the veto as a sort of lightning rod for demo- 
cratic claims. It was necessary to give the peo- 
ple something, but their object was to give as 
little as possible. Legislators have tried to 
stifle the expression of the popular will by all 
kinds of devices ; the result has been, therefore, 
that for the greater part of the time the veto 
has only been a counterfeit on popular rights.'' 

Mr. Ziegler, a member of the Assembly, 
said : 

"You call the people incapable, yet they are 
eminently capable of electing representatives, 
which is quite as difficult a task as voting on 
laws. How can it be said that the people are 
incompetent to vote on laws when it is an 



The Referendum 147 

established principle that 'ignorance of law is 
no excuse for breaking it/ and in the ordinary- 
affairs of life every one is required to know 
the law under which he lives ?'' 

Concerning the optional and the compulsory 
referendum, Mr. Gangel says: 

"Under a democratic system all the laws 
passed by the Chamber ought to be submitted, 
ipso jure, to the sanction of the people. When 
the representatives know that the laws will 
finally go to the people, they will make it their , 
business to frame them in harmony with popu- 
lar ideas and needs, and will try to supply the 
omissions, leaving the final decision in the 
hands of the people. With the compulsory 
referendum the people will vote as a matter of 
course, whereas in the case of the optional 
referendum they will only do so after a certain 
amount of agitation. The optional referendum 
does not occur, as the compulsory referendum, 
at certain stated intervals. It is the outburst 
of a discontent which has been smoldering and 
increasing until at last it breaks out when the 
opportunity offers. It is in fact a safety-valve. 
But the compulsory referendum is the normal 
and peaceful exercise of an established right 
iDy a people that have attained their political 
majority. Those who advocate the optional 
referendum attempt to restrict the exercise of 
this popular right to the smallest possible num- 



148 The Referendum 

bef of cases. The* compulsory referendum, on 
the contrary, is the solemn recognition and 
practical affirmation of the sovereign power of 
the people." 

Another eminent publicist, Mr. Hilty, in set- 
ting forth the advantages of the referendum, 
said: 

"The majority of votes, whether for or 
against a law, will be recorded in such a calm 
and decisive manner as to leave no room for 
dispute ; the people will no longer be subordi- 
nate ; the referendum will be the best means of 
interesting the mass pf electors in public affairs ; 
popular voting is a natural and necessary fac- 
tor in law-making, and laws so made will have 
a truly national character." 



Chapter XVL 

THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM IN THE CON- 
FEDERATION. 

The Federal Assembly met in November, 
1 87 1, for the purpose of discussing the question 
of revision. The President of the National 
Council, Mr. Brummer, in his opening speech 
touched upon each of the important points of 
revision. 

''The question to be decided," he said, ''is to 
know whether the direct intervention of the 
people in legislation is admissible and what 
should be the limits assigned it. These are the 
points upon which opinions clash. Since the 
majority of cantons have accepted the Referen- 
dum it has, in my opinion, become impossible, 
politically speaking, to effect any revision of 
the Federal Constitution, which shall involve 
increased centralization, without at the same 
time bestowing upon the Swiss people as a 
whole the rights which the majority of them 
have obtained as members of a canton." 

In May, 1872, the constitution as drawn by 
the Federal Assembly was submitted to a popu- 
lar vote ; it wa.s defeated by a small majority. 

In 1874 a second attempt was made, result- 

149 



150 The Referendum 

ing succesisfully. The following are the provi- 
sions of the Confederate Constitution referring 
to the Initiative and Referendum : . 

The Federal Constitution may at any time 
be wholly or partially amended. A total revi- 
sion is effected through the forms required for 
passing federal laws. When either house of 
the Federal Assembly passes a resolution for 
the total revision of the constitution and the 
other house does not agree, or when 50,00a 
Swiss voters demand a total revision, the ques- 
tion whether the constitution ought to be 
amended is submitted to the Swiss people, who 
vote ''yes" or "no." If in either case the 
majority of the enfranchised Swiss citizens 
decide in the affirmative, there shall be a new 
election of both councils for the purpose of 
undertaking the revision. 

A partial revision may take place by means 
of the Popular Initiative, or through the forms 
prescribed for ordinary federal legislation. The 
Popular Initiative consists in a demand by 
50,000 Swiss voters for the addition of a new 
article to the constitution, the repeal, or modifi- 
cation of certain constitutional articles already 
in force. When the popular initiative is used 
for the purpose of amending or inserting vari- 
ous articles in the Federal Constitution, each 
modification or addition must form the subject 
of a separate initiative demand. 



The Referendum 151 

The demand by initiative may be presented 
in the form of a proposal in general terms, or 
as a bill complete in all its details. When a 
demand is couched in general terms and the 
Federal Assembly approves it in substance, it 
is the duty of that body to draw up a partial 
revision in the sense of the petitioners and 
refer it to the cantons for acceptance or rejec- 
tion. 

If the Federal Assembly does not approve 
the proposal, then the question whether there 
shall be a partial revision or not must be sub- 
mitted to a vote of the people; and if the 
majority of Swiss citizens taking part in the 
vote express themselves in the affirmative the 
revision shall be undertaken by the Federal 
Assembly, in conformity with the popular deci- 
sion. 

When a demand is presented in the form of 
a bill complete in all its details and the Federal 
Assembly approves it, the bill shall be referred 
to the people and the cantons for adoption or 
rejection. 

In case the Federal Assembly does not agree, 
that body may draft a bill of its own, or move 
that the people reject the demand; and it may 
submit its own bill or proposal for rejection to 
a vote of the people at the same time as the bill 
emanating from the Popular Initiative. 

A federal law shall determine more precisely 



152 The Referendum 

the manner of procedure in the case of demands 
by Popular Initiative, and in the votings on 
amendments to the Federal Constitution. 

A report of the popular vote of 1874 was 
presented to the Committee of the Council of 
Cantons, or states, in which special attention 
was called to the following three features of 
this vote: 

'Tirst: The unlimited discussion prelimi- 
nary to the vote, to which no opposition was 
offered by any party or local authority. 

''Second : The large percentage of voters 
who went to the polls ; about five-sixths of the 
electoral body. 

"Third : The quiet and dignified manner in 
which the electors conducted themselves. 
Throughout the entire country there was not 
a trace of trouble or violence." 

The report concludes : ''This is why this con- 
stitution has not only received the formality of 
law, but, in the most profound meaning of the 
term, is the fundamental law of Switzerland; 
a law that no party will attack because no party 
will be able to attack it ; and still more, because 
no party will wish to attack it, so great is the 
respect which a legal majority inspires in this 
country.'' 

Theodore Curti, the Swiss historian and 
statesman, closes his Resviltate des Referen- 
dums in der Schweiz, published in 1898, from 
which the following is translated : 



The Referendum 153 

"It has been asserted that the Referendum 
works affirmatively or negatively, just as the 
people are in good or ill humor. The history 
of the votings shows, however, a striking degree 
of discrimination with which laws have been 
accepted or rejected. In cases even when a 
number of different laws had to be voted upon 
on the same day, the individual discernment of 
the voters, in the consideration of the various 
questions was instantly recognized by the dif- 
ference in the number of votes cast for or 
against either proposition. 

*'The charge that the citizens grow tired and 
indifferent, owing to the large number of vot- 
ings, is just as unfounded. For various reasons 
the participation at these votings were exceed- 
ingly uneven; but it must be noted that the 
average percentage did not vary in a downward 
direction. Thus, from 1881 to 1887 the aver- 
age percentage varied from 41 to 46 per cent; 
it rose to 69 per cent in 1891, and when the 
question of nationalizing the railroads was a 
second time — in 1898 — submitted to the Refer- 
endum, 80 per cent of the electorate of Switzer- 
land participated in the election. 

"On the other hand, the wholesome effect the 
Referendum exerts upon the country cannot 
be overestimated. It is a political school for 
the people; hence an invaluable element of cul- 
ture. Wherever it is ajpplied all classes of the 



154 The Referendum 

population take interest and participate in dis- 
cussions of the question at issue ; mutually im« 
parting and receiving valuable economic and po- 
litical information; the citizens of all political 
shades commingle freely and argue dispassion- 
ately the pros and cons of measures of common 
interest. The improvement of public instruc- 
tion even, goes hand in hand with the practice 
of more direct legislation, and the argument 
brought forth by its friends that superior edu- 
cational methods must be provided to prepare 
the young for the intelligent exercise of citi- 
zenship, has often induced the people to vote 
liberal appropriations for educational purposes. 
*'As there are objections to every reform,, 
the cry was raised: Furnish these improved 
methods first, and then give them the Referen- 
dum, an argument which recalls the advice of 
the foolish father to his son, 'not to go into the 
water before he could swim.' The people in 
the aggregate are always wiser than the few 
individuals who represent them in the legisla- 
tive halls ; they claim to know best what is good 
for them, and feel more keenly than do their 
representatives where the shoe pinches ; nor are 
they willing to wait until they are considered 
Vipe' for the proper exercise of what they are 
entitled to consider their fundamental rights. 
They intuitively perceive that it probably would 
be a long time before their political maturity 



The Referendum 155 

were conceded by those whose interest it is to 
keep them in ignorant dependence. They very 
logically argue that it is much better for them 
to assume their rights now in order to school 
and educate themselves and gain intellectual 
and economic freedom, through their own indi- 
vidual exertions. 

"The Referendum has proven itself a potent 
factor, both to legislation and the country at 
large, in this : that it has strengthened the in- 
fluence of public opinion upon the representa- 
tive bodies who are naturally prone to assume 
powers which ultimately belong to the people, 
gradually degenerating into a ruling caste with 
the result that, private interests are promoted 
while the affairs of the people are neglected or 
intentionally buried in some committee. 

"Moreover, these popular votings have the 
effect to recall the representatives to the duties 
they owe to their constituents and of reminding 
them of the necessity always to keep en rap- 
port with the sentiment of the people. 

"I have been a member of legislative assem- 
blies in Switzerland for the past seventeen 
years, and it is my conviction that the Refer- 
endum has not prevented the passage of many 
beneficial laws that we desired to have enacted ; 
but that it has prevented the committing of 
many errors, owing to the mere fact that it 
stood as a warning before us. 



1^6 The Referendum 

"I want to say in conclusion that in spite of 
occasional mistakes, most of which were after- 
wards remedied, the Referendum has proven a 
most powerful agency of progress in almost 
every field of human endeavor." 

Karl Burkli, a well-known Swiss patriot, 
political economist and citizen of Zurich, writes 
as follows on the benefits of initiative and refer- 
endum : 

'The smooth working of our federal, can- 
tonal and municipal referendum is a matter of 
fact, a truth generally acknowledged through- 
out Switzerland. The Initiative and Referen- 
dum are now deeply rooted in the hearts of the 
Swiss people. There is no party, not even a 
single statesman, who dares openly oppose it 
in principle, and yet many of them curse the 
institution in the depths of their hearts. 

"All the divers votings — federal, can- 
tonal, municipal — go on without riot, corrup- 
tion, disturbance or hindrance whatever, al- 
though with great agitation. It may authori- 
tatively be said that there is no agitation for its 
repeal or difficulty in its working, whether in 
Federation (Bund) or in the cantons, or in the 
cities, as Zurich, Geneva, Basle, Berne, though 
these cities are full of foreign elements. Our 
Swiss political trinity — Initiative, Referendum 
and Proportional Representation — is not only 
good and holy for hard-working Switzerland, 



The Referendum 157 

but would be even better (I think, too) for that 
grand country of North America. It would 
cure them thoroughly of their leprous repre- 
sentation, both federal and state, and regen- 
erate the misgovernments of their large cities.'^ 

Mr. McCrackan, in his interesting history of 
"The Rise of the Swiss Republic,'' says : 

"The issue constantly at stake, throughout 

the history of the Swiss confederation, has been 

one of the noblest and the most persistent with 

which human nature has had to grapple — the 

question of self-government. 

***** * 

"It will always remain the chief honor and 
glory of Swiss statesmanship to have discov- 
ered the solution of one of the great political 
problems of the ages — how to enable great 
masses of peoole to govern themselves directly. 
By means of the Referendum and the Initiative 
this difficulty has been brilliantly overcome. 
The essence and vital principle of the popular 
assembly has been rescued from perishing mis- 
erably before the exigencies of modern life, 
and successfully grafted upon the representa- 
tive system." 



Chapter XVIL 

THE ONLY REMEDY. 

Public sentiment is rapidly growing into a 
deep-felt conviction that there is no question 
of transcendent interest to the people of this 
country, that demands more prompt and ra- 
tional solution, than that of government of 
cities. Their present status is an anomaly in 
our political system, they are treated as wards 
of the States in which they are situated, and 
since 

"It is the curse of evil deed that. 
Propagating evil, it must breed." 
the objectors, in the State Legislature, in civic 
associations, in the city councils or in the pub- 
lic press, who continue to oppose the introduc- 
tion or rather extension of the Referendum 
upon the flimsy pretext that the people are not 
ripe for its exercise, render themselves subject 
to the charge of giving aid and comfort to the 
corporate and political vampires who directly 
or indirectly have been and still are robbing 
the people of millions upon millions of their 
earnings. 

Historian Macauley says : 

158 



The Referendum 159 

"Many politicians are in the habit of laying 
it down as an evident proposition that no people 
ought to be free till they are fit to use their 
freedom ; the maxim is worthy of the fool who 
resolved not to go into water until he had 
learned to swim.'' 

The above fits some of the honest and most 
candid objectors to the Referendum exactly. 
Laboring under the self-contented delusion 
that the term ''people" is synonymous with 
^'plain people," of which they themselves form 
no part; that this "plain people" are not as well 
informed as they are themselves, should not be 
entrusted with the Referendum until they can 
be sufficiently educated to make proper use of 
it, or, metaphorically speaking, not to allow 
them to go into water until they can swim. 

This is not the time for puerile objections. 
Evidences of demoralized political conditions 
are forthcoming with an alarming regularity 
and unless the remedying specific is applied, 
without undue hesitancy, they will culminate 
into a serious danger to our free institutions. 

"Vice is a monster of such frightful mien. 
As to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
But seen too oft, familiar with its face, 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

The presence of vice in the field of city poli- 
tics is now universally recognized. It is hated 
by the large majority of the citizens without 



i6o The Referendum 

regard to political party predilections, but the 
incentive, the vice-creating motive, seems to 
be underestimated or ignored. The acquisition 
of wealth, for the gratification of human de- 
sires, the comfort and happiness of one's 
family, is unquestionably the strongest incen- 
tive to all industrial, commercial and mostly of 
the artistical endeavors of mankind. This sen- 
timent is honorable as it is natural, if legiti- 
mately exerted, deserves to be encouraged and 
fostered by public opinion. When it becomes ap- 
parent, however, that the acquisition or inordi- 
nate increase of wealth is the incentive to po- 
litical debauchery, its prompt elimination be- 
comes a public duty. 

The question then arises through what meth- 
od can this incentive be eliminated ? By mak- 
ing it inoperative* Or to use a popular par- 
lance, make the "goods bargained for" by the 
operator for a consideration undeliverable ex- 
cept under the condition that such ''goods," 
consisting in the franchise for the operation of 
street cars, or any other public utility in a city 
or village, shall be submitted to a popular vote 
of such municipality. Can there be any doubt 
about the efficacy of such eliminating method ? 

Or is it supposable that shrewd financiers, as 
the managers of public service corporations are 
generally known to be, would invest hundreds 
of thousands and in some instances millions in 



The Pvcferendum i6i 

the bribery of members in State Legislatures 
and City Councils, without the absolute cer- 
tainty that ''the goods" bargained for would 
be delivered ? 

The proposition is too absurd for earnest 
consideration. 

But the mere fact that such conditions pre- 
cedent to the obtaining of any grant were in- 
serted in the State statutes would keep the 
aforesaid incentive from the doors of the leg- 
islative chambers. 

The gentle operator, bajfifled by such impedi- 
ments, would either disappear from the field of 
public-service enterprises, or enter into nego- 
tiations with the respective authorities, actuated 
by the same honorable incentives with which 
business men enter into their daily mutual 
transactions. 

With the disappearance of the incentive and 
the consequent withdrawal of the operators 
from the legislative halls, the "business'' of 
politics would necessarily cease to be lucrative, 
hence very uninteresting to the professional 
politician. 

Political bosses with an eye to the main 
chance know very little and care less about the 
merits or demerits of their respective party 
programmes, except when coupled with a fat 
appropriation. They take no interest in the 
questions of a tariff except when the term is 



i62 The Referendum 

applied to the value of a franchise, and in that 
case they are for *'free trade" or ''for revenue 
only." As far as imperialism and annexation 
is concerned in principle, they are in favor of 
both ; they propose to dictate what of the good 
things shall and what shall not be annexed. 
The question which is to them the vital one is 
that of the currency, but whether silver, gold 
or greenbacks, is all the same to them so long 
as a liberal quantity of either finds the way 
into their spacious pockets. 

The currency question is to the boss the 
steam that turns the wheels of the "machine;" 
with the escape of the steam the machine sud- 
denly comes to a standstill, when the "boss," 
who generally has amassed a comfortable for- 
tune, goes into the horse racing business or 
resumes the less profitable but more honorable 
trade or occupation he was engaged in before 
he took to politics as any easy method for the 
most speedy accumulation of wealth. 



Chapter XVIIL 

PARTISANSHIP AND PARTISAN LEGISLATION 
LESSENED BY THE REFERENDUM. 

Politically speaking, America is a house di- 
vided against itself, while, by the dictates of 
common sense, community of interests and of 
mutual good-fellowship, it should stand before 
the world as a harmonious, undivided political 
structure. 

Unity of opinion upon any well defined sub- 
ject is as impossible as it is undesirable, but 
it is neither sensible nor wise to divide into 
two or three hostile camps upon mere names 
or designations, with so-called platforms of nu- 
merous, ^'whereases and resolves," upon which 
the respective adherents themselves cannot pos- 
sibly, and do not in fact, all agree. Although 
feasible and desirable, the elimination of polit- 
ical party issues in the United States upon 
National affairs can only be accomplished af- 
ter the introduction and successful operation 
of the Initiative and Referendum in the ma- 
jority of states. But in the latter, with local 
issues only there is practically no excuse or 
justification for the maintenance of this mon- 
strous system. In absence of an object lesson 
on this continent, in support of these state- 

163 



164 The Referendum 

ments the little Republic of Switzerland, with 
almost half a century of successful experience 
with the Referendum, will serve as an illustra- 
tion of its effect upon partisanship and partisan 
legislation. Owing to the fact that the Refer- 
endum may be asked upon any law adopted by 
the Federal Legislature, political party divi- 
sion is hardly known in that body. As a rule 
a law is discussed and it stands or falls upon 
its merits. 

It follows from this non-partisan character 
that the Federal or executive council is not ex- 
pected to be unanimous. As a matter of form 
every measure has been debated by the council 
before it is submitted to the Federal Assembly, 
and it is not thought improper for a member 
of the executive to oppose a bill submitted by 
one of his colleagues, and such a member re- 
signing because his measure has not been fa- 
vorably received by the Assembly, or was de- 
feated by the people with the Referendum,, 
would be considered an undignified pro- 
ceeding. This non-partisan sentiment perme- 
ates the entire Swiss electorate, reducing the 
asperities of election contests to a minimum. 
An honest representative, known to be consci- 
entious in his convictions, does not fail to be 
re-elected because his views differ from those 
of his constituents. 

Mr. Numa Droz, the Swiss statesman, in his 



The Referendum 165 

^'Referendum in Switzerland," says: ''When 
the people reject a law in virtue of their sover- 
eign right, there is no entering into a state of 
conflict. Thq craftsman carries out the work 
to his satisfaction ; the employer who gave the 
order is of a different opinion, and sends it 
back to be altered. The legislator is not dis- 
credited. He is in the position of a deputy 
whose bill has not passed ; there is no want of 
confidence." 

And Prof. A. L. Lowell says : 

"There is also absence of party machinery 
and organization outside the houses of the 
Legislature. There are in the confederation 
no , national committees, no elaborate systems 
of primary caucuses and general conventions, 
no men who make a business of arranging 
nominations and managing campaigns. The 
liberals and the radicals do occasionally hold 
congresses, but these are simply intended to 
prevent disruptions by discussing the questions 
of the day; they take no part in the nomination 
of candidates. The Referendum tends in a va- 
riety of ways to lessen the importance of par- 
ties. It entails a decision only on the special 
measure under consideration, and hence the 
people are never called upon, either at an elec- 
tion or a referendum, to judge the conduct of 
the party as a whole. It is no doubt largely for 
this reason that Swiss political parties have no 



i66 The Referendum 

very definite programmes and little organiza- 
tion. If a law is unpopular the people simply 
refuse to sanction it, and this prevents an out- 
cry against the party that enacted it. If, on 
the other hand, the people ratify it, there is 
clearly no use in trying to persuade them that 
the men in power were very wrong in passing 
it, and ought to be turned out for doing so. 
Nor is there any chance for an opposition to 
work on the popular fears by foretelling the 
bad laws the ruling party is likely to pass, if 
confirmed in power, because the people can 
always reject measures they do not like. Hence 
it is not easy to find arguments for electing a 
new set of Representatives, drawn either from 
the past or the future." For further informa- 
tion the reader is referred to the article on 
"Switzerland.'^ 



Chapter XIX. 

THE REFERENDUM AS AN EDUCATIONAL 
AGENCY. 

The most imposing feature among the excel- 
lencies of the American Republic does not con- 
sist in the superiority and magnitude of her 
material progress. The achievement that chal- 
lenges the admiration of the civilized world is 
the fact that, after untold centuries of strug- 
gling humanity for the natural rights of life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness, her people 
have satisfactorily solved the question of pop- 
ular self-government. 

We owe it to the memory of the founders, 
to ourselves and to posterity, to rejuvenate in 
the hearts of the youth and in the minds of the 
adults the now partly obscured ideals which in- 
spired the fathers, as the only unfailing guar- 
antee to the perpetuity of our republican insti- 
tutions. 

Information is power, superior knowledge 
on the one hand and ignorance on the other 
gave the few, who in olden days became the 
rulers, supreme power over the lives and prop- 
erty of the many. Conditions have changed 
and information is so widespread that a re- 
currence of the ancient methods is out of 
question ; but the greedy and crafty few on the 

167 



i68 The Referendum 

one side and the indifferently informed on the 
other are still among us, and unless the latter 
are informed of their rights and immunities 
and of their duties to the community, they will 
to a degree be taken advantage of by the un- 
scrupulous few to the detriment of the common 
interest. 

With the exercise of the Referendum, 
American citizenship will appreciate in value; 
it will impress the voter with the solemn obli- 
gation he is assuming, as he becomes conscious 
of the fact that his vote might determine the 
fate of an important public measure. While 
some will always remain indifferent and igno- 
rant, there is hardly a community in this land, 
large or small, the majority of which is not 
well disposed and either well informed or will- 
ing to learn. 

What could possibly be more conducive to- 
wards the formation of intelligent citizenship 
than the periodical gathering of citizens for 
the free expression and interchange of thought 
upon any public question, submitted to a Ref- 
erendum ? 

Individual voters of humble station would 
enjoy, for the first time perhaps, the opportu- 
nity to relieve their minds by ''speaking out in 
meeting" what in fact had been for some time 
uppermost in the public mind, but what had 
been disregarded by their unfaithful represen- 
tatives. Who knows but that such a man, in 



The Referendum 169 

simple attire, apparently a working man, might 
astonish the audience with a remarkably deep 
and correct insight of the question at issue ; de- 
velop unusual readiness of repartee during 
the discussion ; in short, spring with one bound 
from comparative obscurity into conspicuous 
publicity ? 

On the other hand, what a splendid field for 
the student, the practical reformer, for the in- 
telligent and well informed members of the 
various civic associations, to argue the subject 
of their thought and investigations before a 
meeting of their less informed fellow citizens, 
and to demonstrate to them the wisdom and 
expediency, or the impracticability and vicious- 
ness of the measure to be submitted to their 
suffrages. 



Chapter XX. 

THE REFERENDUM AN OBSTACLE TO OVERLEGIS- 
LATION. 

Close observation of social and legislative 
development reveals the fact that many impor- 
tant matters, mere trifles, in fact, have been 
made the subject of numerous different acts in 
the course of a few years, by which the statutes 
have been encumbered and confused to such a 
degree as to puzzle the ingenuity of a Phila- 
delphia lawyer. 

In the next place, owing to political party 
differences or to private interests of individuals 
or corporations, days and weeks are wasted in 
discussion, with little regard to public af- 
fairs. Were it made obligatory upon the Leg- 
islatures to submit any act affecting the people 
of municipalities, upon the request of a small 
percentage of the electorate to a popular vote, 
there is not a particle of doubt but that it would 
result in an effective cure of the law-making 
mania. 

*'None who gives attention to the matter will 
deny that this country would be freer and hap- 
pier if there were a lawful check against laws.'^ 
says the New York Evening Post. "The lack 
of any such checks puts on the people of every 
State, in every season, such a mass of re- 

170 



The Referendum 171 

straints that not the lawyers themselves keep 
track of them, and confusion is worse con- 
founded by the wrongness, inconsistency and 
mutual interference of the bills that go through 
the annual grist. Legislatures are commonly 
political rather than statesmanlike, and they 
put into the permanent form of law schemes 
for temporary and party benefit. Sometimes the 
laws are not even so wide as that, but are mere 
screws for extortion. It cannot be that so 
many measures are needed to preserve the up- 
rightness of a country that is naturally as up- 
right as any in the world, yet it is a fact that 
over 20,000 pages of laws issue every year from 
the Legislatures of our States. We live in a 
riot of law-making. It is a blessing that most 
of the measures are dead letters from the day 
of their enactment, yet it is a danger that any 
of them can be resurrected from the limbo of 
the forgotten and used to enforce an unjust 
demand or express a prejudice. Lacking a na- 
tional check or standard of law, the various 
States and the various cities of a State can be 
widely divided against one another. One could 
multiply, through hundreds of pages, the ab- 
surdities and inconsistencies for which zeal in 
law-making is responsible, but it would not 
check their increase. That is best prevented by 
allowing the people to approve or nullify their 
laws. Initiative and Referendum offer great 
possibilities.'' 



Chapter XXL 

A TRAGIC OBJECT LESSON. 

Perhaps the most drastic illustration in his- 
tory of the consequences which may follow 
upon the willful refusal on the part of repre- 
sentatives to give the people an opportunity 
ultimately to determine questions of public im- 
portance is that of the trial and execution of 
King Louis XVI. of France. 

That inoffensive monarch, a victim of the. 
sins of his predecessors, had been tried by the 
French convention and sentenced to death. 

The conservative Girondists, inferior in 
number but superior in brain, made an attempt 
to save the king's life by proposing to submit 
the sentence to a popular vote. 

Robespierre, the head and front of the ex^ 
tremist majority, fully aware that the people 
of France, if appealed to would reverse the 
judgment, jumped to his feet and vehemently 
opposed the motion. 

"They," he exclaimed, '^cannot sit in your 
popular assemblies when they are engaged in 
the workshops ; they cannot judge Louis XVL 
when they, the sweat upon their brows, support 
the stalwart citizen who serves his country in 

172 



The Referendum 173 

the field. If you hold the sovereignty of the 
people in such high esteem, you should knowr 
how to respect it. Fulfill the mandate they 
have intrusted to you. 

*^To refer back a measure which demands 
prompt action is making sport with the people. 
If they had the time to meet and to dispose of 
the affairs of the State, they would not have 
charged you with the task of attending to their 
business." 

It would be a difficult task to find within a 
few lines as much fiendish hypocrisy and thinly- 
veiled sophistry in any utterance by a public 
man in history as expressed by that arch-dema- 
gogue Robespierre. He willfully and deliber- 
ately lied when he said that the butchery of that 
weak and vacillating but well meaning king 
was a measure that demanded prompt action, 
except upon the cruel theory that a popular re- 
action might suddenly materialize and interfere 
with his sanguinary work. 

The French people did not demand the blood 
of Louis XVI. Outside of the revolutionary 
clubs of Paris no general feeling of revenge 
was perceptible. The people had begun to fa- 
miliarize themselves with the idea that a king 
was not essential to a well regulated govern- 
ment, and his banishment would not only have 
been satisfactory to the country, but probably 
have prevented foreign invasion. 



174 The Referendum 

The intelligent, far-seeing republicans, of 
which the Girondists were the prominent rep- 
resentatives, voiced public sentiment in their 
endeavor to save the king's life through a Ref- 
erendum. They argued that Louis XVI/s fate 
upon the guillotine would raise the bloodthirsty 
Robespierre and his fanatical followers to un- 
disputed power, and the ruin of the Republic 
would be the consequence. 

The revolution of 1789, with its bill of hu- 
man rights, the fall of the Bastile, that monu- 
ment of brutal despotism, and the great festi- 
vals of the Federation of the French, its crown- 
ing glory, were hailed with demonstrations of 
delight and approbation by the peoples of con- 
tinental Europe. The French patriots had 
worked a most befitting counterpart to the 
American revolution. All these glorious 
achievements were eclipsed with Louis XVL^s 
execution and Robespierre's reign of terror 
which immediately followed. The nations that 
had received the news of the revolution with 
joyous acclamations and were upon the point 
of imitating the French turned away with dis- 
gust and dismay from the carnival of blood 
and from the country that had replaced the tri- 
color with the red flag of the guillotine, in fact 
if not in theory.. But for the refusal of sub- 
mitting the sentence of Louis XVI. a Republic 
after the pattern of the United States would 



The Referendum 175 

have been a certainty in France and a United 
States of Europe among the possibiHties. 
There never will be a parallel produced on this 
side of the Atlantic. No fear need to be appre- 
hended of any revolution here. Universal suf- 
frage, free speech, a free press and public edu- 
cation are the political safety valves, and the 
spirit of fair-play among the people of the rural 
districts is a guarantee to the people of cities 
that they will not be treated as aliens, but will 
enjoy the same rights and privileges as the 
farmers themselves enjoy. 

Nevertheless it may perhaps be well for the 
objectors to the Referendum to remember that 
in the end the people's cause will win and that 
increased strain upon the bow necessarily in- 
creases the velocity and force of the arrow ! 



Chapter XXII. 

CONCLUSION. 

Professor Frank K. Parsons, of the Boston 
University, writes in an article upon *'The 
Great Movement of the Nineteenth Century/' 
in the July number of the Arena, 1891 : 

''Some of the currents in the sea of life to- 
day are so powerful and so obvious that even 
the most careless voyager can scarcely fail to 
note them, though he may not understand 
them. The increase of wealth and power 
through invention and discovery, steam and 
electricity, manufactures, commerce, railroads, 
telegraphs and machinery; the growth ofi 
knowledge and its wide dissemination; the de- 
velopment of liberty and democracy ; the trend 
toward union, co-operation, and organization; 
and the spread of civilization round the globe 
by colonization, commerce, and conquest — 
these are patent to all, as is also the progressive 
aggregation of enormous wealth in the hands 
of a few individuals, resulting from processes 
of industrial organization dominated by the 
ideal of commercial conquest, and intended to 
secure the mastery of the many by the few, in- 
stead of the union of all for the benefit of alL 

176 



The Referendum 177 

"The meaning of these great movements is 
not as obvious as their existence; yet it is not 
difficult to decipher. The last named move- 
ment means aristocracy, mastery, despotism, 
power for the few, industrial limitation and 
restriction for the rest; the other movements 
mean the liberation and enrichment of life for 
all the people — the concentration of wealth en- 
tails the sure subjection and impoverishment 
of the masses : while the growth of knowledge, 
wealth and power, union and civilization, linked 
with liberty, democracy, education and co-op- 
eration, must make all the people rich and free. 

'These movements of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, therefore, fall into two opposing groups 
— one lifting the whole world into freedom 
and plenty, the other capturing the world for 
the profit and pleasure of the few ; one tending 
to elevate a litle body of monopolists and sub- 
merge the rest, the other tending to elevate all. 
Another influence more important than any 
other, perhaps, but not yet named, because it 
could not be put in the list of obvious move- 
ments, is the deepening and broadening of 
sympathy and the rising power of its best 
ideals. This influence joins the group that 
tends to enrich and liberate all human life.'' 

If the currents of the sea of life, so admira- 
bly delineated by the distinguished professor, 
were not understood eleven years ago, there 



178 The Referendum 

has been a perceptible growth of knowledge 
since. 

The signs of the times plainly indicate the 
growing consciousness that the movement 
which means aristocracy, mastery, despotism, 
power for the few, limitation and restriction 
for the rest, is the result of unwise and vicious 
legislation and that consequently the law-mak- 
ing power needs to be checked. 



MAJORITY RULE IN COMBI- 
NATION WITH REPRESEN- 
TATIVE GOVERNMENT IN 
CITY, STATE AND NATION 

Can be attained in a non-partisan way and with 
little effort. No change in the written constitution. 



The Winnetka System for 
Attaining the Optional 
Referendum and the Initi- 
ative. : : : : : : : : : 

BY 

GEORGE H. SHIBLEY 

Chairman of the National Non-Parti- 
san Federation for Majority Rule; 
Recently of the Bureau of Economic 
Research; Counsellor at Law; Author 
of "Elements of Law," "The Money- 
Question,'*' 'The Monopoly Question/' 
"Outline of Social Evolution," "The 
Trust Problem Solved," Etc. 



88 Pages - 5 Cents a Copy, Postage Paid 



ADDRESS 

NATIONAIv 

NoN -Partisan Federation 

FOR MAJORITY RUI^B 
OFFICES, 38 BLISS BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C 



ONE COPY RECEIVED 



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